Western Wendigo
by MoonDrop162
Summary: Samantha and Dean are stuck in the wilderness of Colorado with three clueless companions while they try to Hunt a Wendigo before it hunts them. Will Sam's growing anger break her before the job gets done? Girl!Sam. M for lang. Based off second episode.
1. The Stuff of Nightmares

**Hello again, chickadees!**

**I'm back with another adventure for Dean and his little sister, Samantha. If you haven't read my other fanfic, lemme do some explaining. I had an idea for a fanfic one day about what Supernatural would be like if Sam was a Samantha instead of a Samuel and voila! I wrote out the pilot episode with these two, modeling our new-and-improved Sammy after Alexis Bledel; it's called Relapse if anyone would like to read that. I recommend it, though it isn't mandatory for this to make sense.**

**As always, I appreciate any reviews left for me, and if you think there's something I should change, be polite about it. I respond much better to civility than bluntness. **

**I hope you enjoy this fanfic. It was quite a challenge for me to write this considering that this follows Sam's trauma with her boyfriend Roger. I tried to follow how I think she'd react to the best of my ability, and I'm very satisfied with how it turned out. Sam's anger man... in some ways it's more terrifying than Dean's because Sam is normally the gentler of the two siblings, so when he explodes it's much more of a shock. **

**Anyhoo, I've talked enough now. The chapters are a lot longer in this "episode" so please bear with me.**

**Enjoy!**

**Yours truly,**

**MD**

**_DISCLAIMER: I so not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_  
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><p>Considering the reason she was here, it was an unnaturally happy day. Birds were chirping throughout the whole cemetery and the sun shone down without a cloud in the sky to blemish its heated stare. The grass looked a more vibrant shade of green than normal, and there wasn't a single breeze. It was a beautiful day. Too fucking bad Sam was here to see her dead boyfriend.<p>

Samantha trudged past headstones as slowly as she could, staring down at the bouquet of flowers in her hands. She knew the path to Roger's grave, she'd walked it a million times and it had only been a few days. Sam felt unsatisfied with everything. The damn sunlight being too fucking cheery, the damn birds that couldn't shut the hell up, the eerie silence in this stupid fucking graveyard. Which was the last fucking place Sam wanted to be right now, by the way. In case God, or angels, or who-the-fuck-ever had let her innocent boyfriend just burn even gave a shit about how Sam felt.

The flowers she'd chosen were simple, and a little cliché, but she'd barely been able to remember that she needed flowers for her visit, so all things considered, Sam was proud of herself. A few white lilies with a few leaves for accents. It was small, but it served her purpose. Why go to all the trouble to buy an extravagant bouquet when they'd just wither away within a few days anyway? Wither away with Roger. Dust to fucking dust, man.

All too soon Sam was in front of Roger's grave. The brown dirt in front of his headstone still had that newly-turned-earth smell. It made her fucking sick. This whole god damned situation made her sick. It made her sick to her very soul. But Sam was tired of always feeling heartache, always having her emotions torn and shredded over nails and glass until they came back to her tattered. It was so much easier to just shove them in a box and ignore them all. If all that baggage just stayed in the box, nice and quiet, it was easy for her to pretend like none of this had happened. It was easy to believe this was all just another nightmare.

Sam stared on, lamely. She didn't quite know what to say. She'd had a million things to tell Roger when she got here, and for the life of her, she couldn't remember one. It was an odd sort of feeling to be standing there, staring at the plot of ground her boyfriend was buried in, but more than that, the lack of emotion Sam felt while standing there was the oddest thing of all. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, just staring at the name "Roger James Woodburn." She avoided looking at the date of death.

Sam knelt down next to the headstone and just sat there. She didn't have any words to describe how she felt because she didn't know how she felt. She couldn't access that part of her brain right now, it was too taxing. Too much energy was spent on emotions. Fuck emotions. This kind of shit is what happened when people felt emotions. When people fell in love. That just made the pain of them leaving all the more unbearable. Sam mused, for a moment, that she understood her dad a little better now.

"Hey, Roger." Her voice was quiet, subdued in this hushed place. "It's me. I brought you flowers." Her tone was thin and dry, blank of everything; it lacked any kind of conviction. Sam knew that if she was a normal girl she'd be crying by now. She'd be a sobbing mess. She'd be overflowing with everything she'd felt the night of the fire and couldn't even begin to understand. She'd be pushing her own feelings out of her body in the forms of tormented gasps and sobs because it just could not possibly be contained within her small, tiny frame. She'd admit to Roger all the things she'd kept from him in their relationship about who she truly was, even if it was a lost cause at this point. But Sam couldn't hold onto those thoughts. No sooner had she dredged one up from the blackness than it evaporated out of her grasp like smoke. She just couldn't process her own thoughts anymore.

"You know I've never been one with words. I'll just…" Sam's voice died down, her sentence left unfinished. She reached down stiffly to set the flowers by his headstone, but as soon as they touched the earth, they decayed to dust and fell away from her hands. Sam stopped, and after a moment drew back her hand, staring at it like she was seeing it for the first time. Black ash from the lilies dusted her hands. Sam ignored it and placed her hands in her lap. It was an eternity before she stood up and started to trudge back to she-didn't-even-know-where. Her feet felt weighed down to the ground, like she was wearing concrete blocks instead of her customary boots.

Faster than Sam could blink, a hand shot out from the dirt and grabbed her ankle. Sam fell forward and landed on her face. Slowly, she turned around to examine what it was that had stopped her. Sam watched with a blank face as another hand shot out and grabbed a handful of dirt, unperturbed. It wasn't until Roger's ink black hair popped up that her eyes widened. Sam began screaming as loud as she could while he crawled out of his grave, his eyes blank and filmy with death, and the gash on his stomach still bleeding.

Why was it bleeding? It wasn't supposed to be bleeding. Roger was dead. She had gone to his funeral just two days ago… So why was he bleeding?

Roger yanked on her ankle, dragging her towards him. Sam reached for something, anything that she could hold onto. Roger was dead. She'd watched him die. She'd seen it happen. He was dead, so what the hell was this?

It wasn't long before she was lying flush on the dirt Roger had sprung up from. Half of his body had managed to weasel out of the grave, and he bent over her from the side. His blood poured out, soaking the dirt around Sam, and ruining her clothes. He pulled in a ragged, raspy breath, staring down at her with those cold, dead eyes. Sam felt her tears burning paths to the earth, her own breath choking in her throat.

"Why, Sam?" Roger's voice was hollow, broken. It sounded strained, like it was hard to speak. Sam just closed her eyes, the tear tracks searing into her skin, and shook her head. She wasn't hearing this. She wasn't seeing this.

"Why Sam?" Roger demanded again. "Why couldn't you save me? Why did I have to die because of _you_?" Sam just kept shaking her head. She couldn't speak. She could only cry. It felt like someone was taking a razor blade to her heart; she couldn't go through this again. She was going to break. She could already feel the cracks on her skin. She couldn't contain this emotion anymore, it was boiling around in her gut. It was going to split her wide open, rip her seams apart and explode in the world around her.

"Why, Sam?" She wasn't sure if Roger was still talking or if it was a voice in her head. Either way it just helped drag the razor blade one more time. It added more pain to the pool in her gut. She was going to break.

Hot. She felt so hot. Her blood was on fire, boiling, it burned her veins wide open. All that fire seared its way down to her stomach, to the pit. Sam opened her sobbing eyes and looked down at the blood stain on her stomach. The skin on her gut had melted away with the force of the heat, and her stomach was bleeding onto the ground to match Rogers. His eyes still bore down on her, and Sam arched her back, screaming. When she'd seen the wound, she'd suddenly noticed that it hurt unlike anything she'd ever felt before. Her intestines and internal organs were literally burning away, and there was so much blood. She didn't know a human could hold that much.

The fire spread out from her stomach now, traveling in her veins to her limbs. It made her skin itch and crawl. Roger watched on in silence. Fire sprung up around her and suddenly she was burning, the fire sucking the oxygen from her screeches and wails of desolation. Her back fell to the ground, and suddenly she was pinned. She couldn't move, couldn't even make a sound as the fire burned and her stomach boiled. Roger's eyes were so horrifyingly blank.

This was not her Roger. This was not her Roger. This was too much to handle, there was so much pain. Why was he bleeding? Why was he here? How was she burning? Why did he have to die? It was all her fault. How could she not have protected him?

Why did he have to die? Why? Why, why… WHY?

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><p>Sam gasped and shot away from the window, her arms flailing wildly. She needed to put out the fire, or she was going to buan away to ash. Sam's chest heaved and she whipped her head around, groggy. After a few moments, she sat back, slightly confused. She wasn't at the cemetery anymore. She wasn't even outside. She was sitting next to a very concerned Dean in his '67 Chevy Impala as they drove down the highway at an alarming rate. Slowly, as her brain woke up from that nightmare, she remembered that they were heading to Black Water Ridge, Colorado. The coordinates they're indirectly gotten from their dad over a week ago had led the siblings there, for whatever ungodly reason.<p>

Sam sighed heavily, thanking whatever deities were listening that it had only been a nightmare. But at the same time… what a nightmare. It had felt so real to her, she could have sworn she'd smelled the hairs on her arms and legs burning. Her heart was still racing painfully from the paralyzing fear she'd been struggling to reel back from in that dream world. Her head was pounding its protests against the mental trauma, and she could already feel it morphing into a migraine. Sam groaned and tossed an arm over her eyes.

Normally, Samantha Winchester was very well-kept in her appearance. She wasn't like a lot of girls in that she traded shorts, skirts, and heels in for tattered jeans and her favorite black leather GI style combat boots or sneakers. In her life as a Hunter before college at Stanford, she'd never dolled herself up with that makeup shit all girls seemed to obsessively lather on themselves, and once she'd stepped away from "the life" for those two years, the desire had never caught on. Her shirts were all simple, single color V-necks, no designs. She had a few jackets of browns and grays, one black pea coat and one dark brown leather jacket she'd gotten from her brother for Christmas when she'd turned fifteen. That was it for her fashion sense. Sam didn't see the point in wearing all that clingy shit when most of it had always gotten ripped and bloodied anyway. What was the point of spending all that time picking out mauled her to death? Wearing practical clothes that were easy to run and fight in made a lot more sense than miniskirts and dresses.

Her straight brown hair was down, for once, and fell a little past her shoulders, all tangled and messy. She must have been thrashing her head in her sleep. Normally Sam liked to keep her hair out of her face and back in a tight ponytail with her short bangs resting just above her eyes, but her traitorous body had given out on her before she'd had the chance to pull it back. Her eyes felt puffy, and she knew she had dark circles under them. Sam had inherited her mom's hazel blue eyes, a charming mixture of light, piercing blues and honey-colored browns that usually twinkled with mischief or blazed with determination. Well… before a week ago, that is.

Her slender nose was a little small for her face, and her lips just a little too large, but the overall effect, with the added freckles, rosy cheeks, and soft jawline made Sam look quite endearing. She had a subtle beauty about her that one had to really take a moment to discover, but once people did, it was obvious why guys had always been unconsciously drawn to here, despite her tomboy-tough-as-nails-touch-me-and-I-break-your-face attitude. Being raised by two Hunters surrounded by death and blood hadn't exactly been an environment where a frilly-girly-foo-foo attitude kept you alive. Sam had needed to learn to get her shit straight and take everything head-on if she was going to keep herself and her family out of trouble. But, that had never stopped her from at least looking clean and… _human_.

Now, she just looked haunted. It was only natural after what she'd seen after Jericho a week ago, but her face looked so foreign in her eyes that now she avoided looking at anything reflective, if she could help it. Sam looked like a shell of herself. Roger's death had twisted something in her mind, and where Sam had been gentle and compassionate to those she cared about, she was now angry and gruff all the time. She snapped at the slightest drop of a hat these days, and when she got angry it was so completely blown out of proportion and out of control that it left Sam gasping for breath. For being such a caring person, her anger had always been something she'd had trouble with. Now, with this pain in her past adding fuel to the fire, it was almost unbearable at times.

It was a few moments before Sam realized that Dean had spoken to her. She dropped her arm away from her eyes and tilted her head to look at him, still trying to pull herself out of that nightmare.

"Huh?" Dean's frown out the windshield deepened. He reached over and turned Foreigner's 'Hot Blooded' down a little bit. Sam hadn't even noticed it playing.

"I asked if you're okay." Sam pinched the bridge of her nose and reached for her brown leather knapsack and her migraine medication. Pills, pain relief, now. Anything to stop the beating her exhausted mind was taking.

"Yeah," she muttered, sounding unconvinced even to _her_ ears, "M'fine." Dean nodded, but his face said he knew otherwise.

"Another nightmare?" he asked. Sam, uncomfortable, avoided the question by grabbing her bottle of pills and popping the cap off. She looked inside and winced. She only had four pills left. Two doses. Fucking Mondays, man. Something always went wrong on a fucking Monday.

Sam pulled out two of the pills and swallowed them dry. She snapped the cap back on and tossed the bottle in the direction of her bag. She cleared her throat and pulled her legs up under her on the leather bench seat. She leaned her head against the window and shut her eyes, willing the pounding drums in her head to stop. She wasn't trying to sleep; no way. She wouldn't be sleeping for a very many hours, not after something like _that_. She just wanted the coolness of the glass to seep through her skull until her brain was numb. She wanted to stop thinking, and just float through the day without any real effort or concentration on her part. She wanted to stop feeling.

"Wanna drive for a while?" Sam's eyes opened. She looked at Dean, shocked. Had she heard that right? He was offering to let her behind the wheel of his precious Impala and sit in the passenger seat himself? He never let _anyone_ drive this car. This car was the love of his life. Dean's green eyes met her own pair of hazel in her stunned silence.

"Since when do I get to drive her?" Sam's eyes were wide and her voice conveyed all of her surprise and confusion at her brother's question. Dean grumbled and looked forward once more.

"Just thought you might want to. Never mind." His tone sounded slightly offended, and Sam realized that he'd been trying to cheer her up. She managed a small smile and closed her eyes, leaning her head against the window once more. Her brother always showed his affection in awkward, bumbling manners, but it meant a lot to her that he even tried. Dean was secluded so far behind his walls and barriers from the world and any real emotional attachment, that for him to try and come out of his shells for Sam and her well-being spoke volumes.

Dean had always been Sam's caretaker. He was her best friend, her idol, her brother, and her protector, equipped with silver bullets and rock salt. Their dad, currently fallen off the face of the planet, had been absent for most of Sam's life. Granted, he was out hunting monsters that would break the most hardened of criminals, but still, the lack of his presence had been felt very acutely by Samantha and her brother. Dean had tried to step in for her and take care of her so well that she didn't even noticed when their dad wasn't around. He put Sam's well-being so far above his own, it amazed her when she seriously thought about it. Dean was the single most giving person Sam had ever met.

He wasn't one for words, her brother. He opted for just shooting at his problems rather than talking things out, and whenever situations got too close to actually forcing him to voice his emotions and fears, he ran away. He did it so charmingly too, most people didn't even notice. He'd tell a sly joke or make a stupid comment, and before ya knew it, the son of a bitch had you forgetting the whole damn situation. But he tried, sometimes, for Sam. He could never truly just be outright about things though, even with his sister, so he did things that seemed insignificant and simple in their meaning to show that he cared for her. Like offering for her drive the Impala. Dean hadn't once said the word love to her since she was about five, but he tried to get it across all the same in the silent, fumbling gestures of compassion that he used to cover up his macho-bravado-façade. It was sweet. Infuriating, sometimes (Sam didn't always get why it was so damn hard for him to just _talk_ to her when he was pissed or whatever), but still. Sweet.

Usually Sam could pick up on these things; all that time Dean had spent alone with her in her childhood had taught her how to read her brother. When Sam was just a little girl and cried at everything like the baby she'd been, she'd prayed every night to God to make her tough like her cool, older brother. She'd watched him closely, and in doing so, she started to learn about him. So, Sam really _should_ have noticed the offer to drive for what it was, but her mind wasn't firing on all pistons these days, and especially not after a nightmare like the one she'd gone through.

"Look, Dean. You're worried. I get it." Dean shifted in his seat at this, but said nothing. "Thank you for trying to cheer me up, but I have a migraine again, and driving would probably be conducive to bodily harm. So, thanks, but I'll pass. I'm fine." Dean scoffed at that. Sam just kept her eyes closed, blessing the cold pane of glass against her temple.

"Uh-huh. Yeah. You're just fucking peachy." Dean's voice dripped with sarcasm, and was tinged with concern, but Sam didn't have anything to say to that. She was obviously lying when she said she was fine; Lord knows what kinds of things she had been muttering in her sleep, and Dean wasn't stupid. It had only been a week since Roger had… passed. No one recovered that fast. So Sam knew Dean knew she was lying through her teeth, but she didn't – couldn't – say it out loud. She couldn't talk about it so soon. Her pain was still fresh, and the wounds on her psyche were still bleeding. Maybe someday, when she felt it scabbed over enough to keep the pain down to a dull throb instead of the stabbing, ripping, tearing at her soul, she would finally talk to him. She would unload everything she couldn't handle herself, and dammit if she wouldn't _make_ the bitch listen to her. Chick-flick moments or not, he would put his pair away for a couple hours and trade it in for a uterus and estrogen, if that's what it took. But not now. No, not now. Now, she only wanted to sit in the seat that smelled of car oil, greasy food, leather and home, and pretend that she didn't have to think.

Sam ignored Dean's question and pulled her leather jacket tighter around her.

"Where are we?" Dean hesitated for a moment, probably deciding whether to really drop the subject or not. Thankfully, he was just as uncomfortable with this topic as she was and easily shifted his focus from his sister to the job.

"We are just outside of Grand Junction." Sam grunted and fell silent, pensive. They'd spent a week snooping around for any clues to tell them what had killed Roger, but they'd gotten absolutely fucking nothing. All they knew was that it was powerful, and that it had killed their mother Mary in the same exact manner the day Sam turned six months old. Their father had witnessed the supernatural circumstances with which their mom had died, and it's what had gotten their family into this life. It'd made Hunters out of them all. Sam thought of her mother's face from a picture she had lost to the fire of when she was just a baby and her parents had been holding her, smiling. It had been the day they'd brought her home. Her mom had had light blonde hair that she'd passed onto Dean, though his was darker and straight where hers was curly. Her eyes were the same shades of piercing blue and honey that Sam's were. She'd had high cheekbones, a small nose, and thin lips, but her face was soft and kind. She was warmth and comfort in a pretty blonde bottle. Sam tried to picture her pinned to a ceiling, bleeding from her abdomen while an unnatural and evil fire burned her away to ash.

Sam quickly shut down that train of thought when she almost puked. Not only would Dean flay her ass for ruining his car, he'd be worried about her, and in all likelihood, she wouldn't be able to evade his questions then. She forced her thoughts somewhere less dangerous, and instead wondered about the coordinates their dad had given them. Sure, they pointed to Black Water Ridge, but it wasn't anywhere close to a town. It was a part of Lost Creek National Park. Right smack dab at the center of it, actually. Sam felt a flash of irritation at her father. He was parading them around on a leash. She was still pissed for her dad having skipped town in Jericho, in the middle of a job no less, and then just expecting them to hop on over to Colorado. Sure, Dad, no problem. We'll just be on our merry-fucking-way. With no answers and a million questions. Oh yeah, and no _fucking_ way to even talk to you. Sounds awesome.

"Ya know, it's weird, Dean. Those coordinates Dad gave us, this Black Water Ridge…" Sam opened her eyes and stretched her legs out a little, frowning at nothing in particular.

"Yeah, what about it?" Sam looked down at her hands.

"There's nothing there. It's just… woods. Open wilderness. Why the hell is Dad sending us to the middle of nowhere?" Dean didn't have an answer for that. He just looked over at Sam and shrugged. He faced out the windshield again when they passed a sign welcoming them to Lost Creek Colorado National Forest.

"I dunno, Sammy, but we'll find out. Dad wouldn't send us here for nothing, okay? There's gotta be something here he wants us to see." Sam mulled this over in her head for a little while before resting it back against the window. She reached into her jacket's right pocket and pulled out half of a blueberry muffin wrapped in a paper towel. She needed to eat something before her medicine made her sick. Dean flicked his eyes warily over to the muffin.

"You be careful with that thing. You get my baby dirty, and I will make detail her with a single cue tip, you got me?" Sam just rolled her eyes and took a small bite. Such a fucking drama queen.

'Hot Blooded' ended and Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song' followed suit. Before long, Sam had finished her muffin and stuffed the paper towel back in her pocket. Now that that was over and done with, Sam drew her legs back in and rested against the door and window, curled in a ball, trying not to think. Trying not to feel. Her head still hurt, after all.

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><p><strong>And there we have it. The start to their next hunt. <strong>

**How am I doing so far? Please leave some love and let me know!**

**Much appreciated. **

**Peace. **

**P.S. I've been watching a marathon of The Twilight Zone. Talk about old-school horror**.


	2. Something Less than Normal

**Hello, lovelies!**

**So for how Sam just explodes outside the ranger station... I'm actually writing from experience here. I've felt so angry before that I had to make something hurt before I could calm down. It's not a fun feeling. I tried to describe it as best I could and do it justice, but I'm kind of wary. And if she seems to be just going bonkers between fine and holy-crap-I'm-gonna-kill-you, that's because she is.**

**Please review! They make me all warm and fuzzy inside.**

**Yours,**

**MD**

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_**

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><p>Sam leaned over a three-dimensional map of the park and stared at Black Water Ridge in the ranger station they'd parked at. Dean was slowly walking around, examining all the decorations and pictures on the walls, paying no mind to the map. He stopped in front of a picture of a man and dead grizzly bear and cocked his head to the side, intrigued.<p>

"So Black Water Ridge is pretty remote," Sam informed her disinterested brother, "it's cut off by theses canyons here. Rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place. It's the real deal out there, man. This ain't your run-of-the-mill camping terrain it's – "

"Hey, check out the size of this friggin' bear!" Dean interrupted his sister, leaning in and squinting at a ginormous grizzly bear. Sam huffed at her brother's rudeness, but walked over nonetheless. She raised an eyebrow at the picture. Damn. Dean was right. Yogi hadn't just eaten all the picnic baskets, but all the picnickers too.

"And" Sam continued, "a dozen or more grizzlies in the area." Dean looked a little worried at that. It almost made Sam want to laugh. Ghosts and werewolves and wraiths? Eh, not a problem for Dean Winchester. Bears? Apparently a different story.

"You two aren't planning to go out by Black Water Ridge, by any chance?" Dean and Sam turned around at the deep male voice they heard behind them. A park ranger stood in a doorway, taking a sip of something out of his mug. He looked to be in his mid to late fifties, and he had gray hair and gray, washed out eyes. His skin was just beginning to sag with age, but the wrinkles around his eyes spoke of his easy smile and happy nature. Sam didn't miss a beat.

"Oh, no, sir," Sam chirped, flashing him a meek and completely fake smile, "we're environmental-study majors from UC Boulder. Just working on a paper."

Dean grinned at the unmoved ranger. "Recycle, man." The man's eyes narrowed at the two.

"Bull," he accused. Sam's smile dimmed and she nervously glanced over at her brother. He was staring at the man, frozen. Shit. "You're friends with that Haley girl, right?" The ranger scratched at the gray hair under his ball cap before replacing it and walked behind the customer service desk. Sam silently let out a breath she'd been holding in while Dean thought it out for a second and then nodded sharply.

"Yes. Yes we are, Ranger…" Dean squinted at the ranger's nametag momentarily, "Wilkinson."

Wilkinson shook his head and took another sip of what Sam had surmised to be coffee and set his mug down on the wooden desk. The ranger looked up at the pair of siblings, his eyes glinting with something akin to annoyance. Whoever this Haley girl was, she'd done something, that was for sure.

"Well I will tell you exactly what I told her. Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Black Water until the 24th. So it's not exactly a missing persons, now, is it? Tell that girl to quit worrying, I'm sure her brother's just fine." Dean nodded, looking appropriately serious as the ranger picked up his coffee mug once more and began meandering back towards his office in the rear of the station. Sam moved to exit the ranger station, but her brother wasn't moving. He had his head cocked to the side in careful thought and soon began speaking again, much to her irritation.

"We will." Dean assured the man. Sam tapped her foot. What was he still doing here? "Well that Haley girl's a real pistol, huh?" Sam gaped at the back of her brother's head. Seriously? Was he fucking _kidding_? Dean couldn't seriously think that this girl had anything to do with why their dad had sent them here, could he? They weren't supposed to be consoling some _girl_ because she couldn't fucking wait to see her brother. Of course, Sam could understand being worried about a sibling, but dammit if she was just going to sit back while Dean ran around chasing tail. Forget that. She would not stand for that shit. She was here because their father had had a_ reason_ for them to be here. They should be out looking for their dad, and if he wasn't here, then out looking for another clue. After shooting something, of course.

Sam felt her anger grow and morph inside her. It roared, begging to be released into her brother's skin. She grinded her teeth instead and balled her fists at her sides and focused on the motion of breathing. Distractions? Yes, please.

"That is putting it mildly." Dean chuckled knowingly and nodded his head. He grinned easily at the ranger and Sam scowled at the back of his head, fuming and crossing her arms. Oh, she had a few choice words for her _dear brother_, but she'd wait until they were back to the car. She had the common sense to wait for privacy before releasing her anger, at least. That was something… right?

"Actually, you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could _see_ her brother's return date." Un-_fucking_-believable. Sam had seen and hear _enough_, thank you. She didn't even wait to see if Dean had gotten what he'd wanted, she just stormed out the door and walked around to the side of the ranger station, leaning against the wall of logs. She shoved her hands into her leather jacket and glared at the ground as if she could set it on fire, seething. This girl's shit wasn't their fucking problem. Dean needed to leave well alone and help Sam figure out what the hell they were _doing_ here in the ass-middle of nowhere, not lie his way to an address of someone they had nothing to do with. They needed to find their dad, not find a quick hook-up.

Sam felt an itching in her hand, almost a compulsion that started in her fingers and tingled its way up her arm. Her fingers balled into a fist of their own accord, and before she knew it, she was punching the closest tree as hard as she could. Her hand cried out, but she stamped it down, pummeling the unrelenting trunk over and over. Sam refused to stop. Her anger was so complete that after that one moment of pain, she didn't even feel her hand anymore.

She felt such pure, unbridled rage, such bottomless and endless anger. She knew, somewhere in the back of her logical mind, that she was merely transferring the rage she'd felt and buried the night of the fire on to Dean simply because he was there. She recognized that what he was doing was, honestly, the right thing to do. This Haley girl's brother was up at Black Water, which is exactly where their dad had pointed them. He was either waiting there for them, or there was something supernatural going on. Maybe both. If Haley had some reason to suspect her brother was in danger, and his last known location most likely had a freaky monster wreaking havoc, then they should check up on the family. They should get some knowledge ahead of time before they just went in, guns blazing. But, for all that reason and rationality, it only made Sam angrier. She didn't _want_ to rational and logical about all this crap, she wanted to get what they came for and move the fuck _on_ already. She had never, _ever_ been angry like this at her brother before. Oh, he'd pissed her off, sure, but this urge to rip into his skin was something Sam had never experienced. It was an anger that could not have been appeased by anything other than physical pain. All she felt was that itching, that insatiable need to make something hurt and bleed. There was nothing to make it stop besides seeing the pain of something else. She needed something to cry, something to writhe and roil as she had in her rage, and before she'd even thought about it, she was driving her hand into the rough bark. Her hand had been completely out of her control and acted on its own, mostly because Dean wasn't around to be her punching bag. So, she'd inflicted it on herself. Pain was pain was pain. The source didn't matter, just so long as something hurt.

It took a few seconds for the pain to pierce through that red wall of murderous anger, but once it did, Sam's rationality latched onto it like a lifeline. She stilled her fist mid-punch and warred with her own mind, trying to stamp down the fury before Dean tried to talk to her and got his teeth knocked in. It was so difficult for Sam to throw everything back in that box she'd made for herself, but the pain helped. It was real. It was a feeling, but it wasn't an emotion. It was something she could focus on and give her the strength to ignore everything else. It was the key to keep her from letting her outrage and fury snap her mind like a twig and take charge.

Sam looked down at her hand. It throbbed painfully, and her knuckles felt like they were already swelling up. It didn't feel broken, but it was certainly beaten all to Hell. The skin on a couple of knuckles and fingers was missing, and there was bright red blood dripping down her fingers and onto the damp, brown earth. Already she could see a giant bruise stretching over her knuckles and traveling up her fingers in a dark, ugly purple, contrasting to the sharp red of her bleeding hand. Sam hated the color red. It was so fucking disgusting. It made her dream rush back to her in a frenzy, and memories she'd carefully avoided thinking about thrashed around in her head. The wound on her soul bled fresh, and she gasped. Yes, this was what she'd needed to make her explosive temper stop. She focused on the acute pinpricks all around her chest and mind, the intense burning in her hand. Her fury subsided for the moment, and Sam slumped against a tree, choking on the air passing into her lungs. Tears were already welling up in her eyes. She hastily wiped them out with her good hand and took deep, slow breaths.

Inside her mind, Sam built a prison. Cold, hard, intimidating, and made of steel. Deep inside the prison, there was a room. That room led to another room, and another, and another until finally, she was standing in front of a box. Made of wood, and old, but sturdy. It was in that box within a room within a room within a room within a prison that she stuffed all of her anger and all of her pain and all of the crap that she just couldn't handle. And when that was over with, Sam fled from that prison like her life depended on it and threw so many locks and chains around the doors that she wouldn't be able to open them again. She took a step away from the steel walls, and the memories whispered for her to come back, but the hurt lessened a little bit. She took another step away, and the whispers faded a little this time along with more pain. She kept walking away from that closet, step by step until she didn't feel the heartbreak anymore, and the whispers had died away. When Sam opened her eyes again, all that was left was her hand. No anger, no sadness, no nothing. Just her hand. A feeling, but not an emotion. She could deal with her hand.

Sam pushed herself off from the tree and took a shaky breath, running her left hand over her face. She felt a little nauseous. Heaving a deep sigh and rolling her shoulders, she slowly started walking back to the Impala. When she walked around the corner, she saw Dean leaning against the driver's door, examining a piece of paper in his hand. A copy of the backcountry permit, no doubt. Her anger hissed at her from within her mind, begging to be set free, but she stubbornly ignored it, walking forward. Prison. Nothing could escape the prison.

She was still trying to figure out how to explain her hand and the injuries to Dean when she got up next to him. Sam just let it hang by her side, dripping silently on the ground, and decided she'd let her brother notice on his own time. It gave her time to think of what she'd say, at least. She wouldn't bring it up until he did. Sam leaned over to examine the paper her brother was smirking down at.

This permit had the home address of one Tommy Collins, so that would probably be their first stop when they got to town. Dean's face looked very pleased with himself as he gave the document another once-over and shoved it into his pocket. He rolled his eyes down to meet Sam's and raised an eyebrow at her, his face going from smug to confused. She shifted her hand subtly behind her and stared blankly back at her brother.

"What was _that_ all about?" Sam shrugged, trying to ignore the anger that was bleeding back into her system. Fucking waste of time this girl was. Who gave a shit? They just needed to see what they were here for and then move the fuck _on_, already. Precious time was ticking away while Sam could be hunting the thing that had…

Sam shut her brain down. Box. Put it all in the box. Thinking was dangerous, so just shove it all in the box and ignore it. Shove it to the back. Don't think. Box it. Box it up.

"I needed air." Dean looked at his sister eyes narrowed in suspicion. His expression was pissing her off. Sam looked away, down to the ground, struggling to tame the demon roiling inside her head. However, her tenuous control was slipping a little, and she couldn't resist the bitterness in her voice in the question she was already asking. "So, what, you cruising for a hookup or something?" Both of Dean's eyebrows raised at this.

"What?" Where had that question come from? Sam hadn't wanted to say that. Well… yes she had. She'd wanted very much to say that, but she didn't _want_ to want to ask her brother that.

"The coordinates point to Black Water Ridge, Dean. I mean, let's just go find Dad. Why even fucking _talk_ to this girl?" Dean stared down at his sister, frowning a little.

"I dunno, maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually _walk_ into it?" Sammy kicked at a rock with her shoe and shook her head, silent. Talking was dangerous too. She didn't want to start a fight with Dean, there was no telling what was going to make her snap and just go off on him. Her brother was already trying so hard to make her feel better; it wasn't fair for her to expect him to be her emotional punching bag too. So, she just started to walk around to the passenger side, but, as luck would have it, that was exactly when Dean noticed that her hand was injured. His hand shot out and grabbed her upper arm, halting her progress. "Whoa, what the hell happened to your hand?"

Moment of truth. Sam held up her hand, examining it contemplatively. The blood flow had slowed down to almost a stopping point. The gashes on her knuckles were ugly, and they were deep, but they weren't too big. There were a lot of them, but none of them looked all that bad. Her hand was a little swollen and red where it wasn't already dark purple. To Dean, it probably looked pretty horrific, but to Sam it just looked moderately intriguing. Like a science experiment. Sam frowned at herself. That was wrong, that wasn't supposed to be her reaction. Maybe she was shoving too much away in that room.

"Sam, I asked you what the _hell_ happened to your hand." Sam hadn't realized she'd been quiet that long. She dropped her hand back down to her side and gave a half-hearted shrug, gently pulling out of his grasp in the process.

"Anger management." That answer didn't seem to satisfy Dean, if his expression was anything to go by, but Sam didn't care much. She just continued over to her side of the car and opened her door with her good hand, pulling her first aid kit out of her bag and dressing her wounds. By the time she had finished, most of the blood was washed away, the wounds had been cleaned, and her knuckles were wrapped in gauze. The burning sensation hadn't lessened at all, and now her hand just felt sore and stiff on top of it all, but at least she didn't have to worry about infection for the moment. With a flash of regret, she realized that she'd punch with her dominant hand. Well wasn't that just bloody fan-fucking-tastic. Maybe she'd be ambidextrous by the time her right hand had healed.

She got into the car grouchily, upset with her mistake, and waited for Dean to start up the Impala. However, when he sat down next to her, he didn't turn his keys in the ignition like he normally did. He just sat and stared at Sam, his eyes narrow and full of concern.

"What?" She snapped. Dean's eyes silently scrutinized something in her expression, before turning forward and finally starting the car. They drove in silence all the way to Tommy Collins' house, Metallica's 'Master of Puppets' blasting as they pulled away from the ranger's station.

By the time they stopped in front of Tommy's house, Sam was feeling much closer to something like normal, and not the emotional Ping-Pong she'd been between such violent anger and her severe lack of emotions. And her hand fucking _hurt_. Bitch stung, man. Maybe she shouldn't have used so much force on that tree. Forget extra strength Tylenol, that crap wasn't doing shit. She'd just have to grit her teeth and suffer through it. It was her fault, after all. Besides… sensations were so much easier to manage than those tumultuous emotions.

The two siblings walked up to the door and Dean knocked promptly on the screen door three times. It was just a few seconds before the front door behind the first screen door swung open. A pretty girl, looking to be around 18 with curly black hair that hung at her shoulders and light blue eyes, stared back at the two strangers on her front porch curiously. Dean cocked his trademark grin at her and Sam flashed a quick smile that she hoped looked friendly enough to be believable. Closer to normal, but not there yet. She was prepared to follow Dean on this one and trust his gut was telling him that there was information here, but she still felt a flicker of annoyance at using up so much time to do so.

"You must be Haley Collins. I'm Dean, this is Sam, we're rangers with the park service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. We wanted to ask you some questions about your brother, Tommy." The girl looked at Dean, up and down, contemplating something.

"Let me see some ID." Dean whipped out a fake ID he'd stopped to make on the way over here and held it up to the screen. Sam just shoved her hands deeper into her pockets, shifting her weight slightly. She didn't have one, unfortunately. Haley scrutinized the piece of plastic for a few seconds before looking back up at the pair. Dean and Sam smiled again and she nodded, opening the screen door for them. "Come on in."

"Thanks," said Dean. Dean moved to the side and out of the way as the screen opened, and Haley raised an eyebrow when she spotted the Impala behind them. Her eyes roved over the car before they fell on Dean.

"That yours?" Dean looked behind him at the car and grinned, obviously glad to show off. Sam just shook her head internally.

"Yeah." Haley looked impressed and gave Dean a small smile.

"Nice car." Well that would get her brownie points. Dean considered anyone who liked his car to have good tastes, and if it was a _woman_ that had good tastes well… that was a one-night stand just waiting to happen. Haley walked into the house and Dean, not surprising Sam in the least, turned around and smiled wickedly at his sister. She just rolled her eyes and shoved her brother inside the house, shutting the door softly behind her when she stepped in after. They followed Haley into the dining room where a gangly boy of about 15 with short black hair and brown eyes sat down, nervously hunched over his plate. His hands were fidgeting with his silverware, and he pointedly avoided looking at the two strangers. Sam had to smile a little at that. Shy boys were so cute to her.

"So," Sam began as Haley started placing food on the table, "if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?"

"He checks in every day by cell. He e-mails, pictures, stupid little videos, but we haven't heard from him in over three days now." Well that was to be expected, Black Water Ridge was no-man's-land. How he even got enough reception to send those things daily in the first place confused Sam.

"Well, maybe he can't get cell reception." Sam thought that should be the obvious answer, but Haley just shook her head.

"He's got a satellite phone too." Ah, well, that explained things. Still… people went camping to 'get away from it all,' and especially in places like Black Water. Maybe he was just enjoying the peace and quiet and the disconnect.

"Could it be he's just having fun and he forgot to check in?" Dean queried. Sam's mouth quirked in amusement. So her brother had been thinking vaguely the same thing then. The boy sitting at the table dropped his silverware and fixed him with a piercing stare.

"He wouldn't do that." His voice was soft, but the earnest conviction was obvious. Dean looked at the boy, seeming surprised that he'd said anything at all. Sam was hesitant to believe the boy; it was too easy to be someone else when people were around. Maybe they didn't really know their brother at all, they only saw a pretty colored facet of who he was.

Haley, previously in the kitchen getting more food for the table, walked back in and set it down on the table, talking patiently with Sam and her brother.

"Our parents are gone. It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other." And that explained why Haley was worried after only three days. Pieces of the puzzle were starting to click together in Sam's head, and then an idea popped in her head. If something _had_ happened up there, maybe there was something in all those pictures and stupid little videos Tommy had sent to his family. It was a shot in the dark, but it couldn't hurt to find out.

"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Haley nodded and walked over to the computer at the other end of the room. Sam followed her and sat down in the chair. Haley clicked on a desktop file, and dozens of picture files pulled up. She opened one with a handsome young man, maybe 24 at most, with black hair and light brown eyes smiling and waving. Sam liked his smile. It was an honest smile, it didn't hide anything. There were too many walls and masks in her life these days, it was refreshing to see someone that felt comfortable just being honest about themselves and how they felt.

"This is Tommy." Haley clicked on another one of her brother laughing next to a friend inside their tent. The last one she opened was a video, taken at night, judging by the darkness of the video in comparison to the previous two pictures. Haley clicked play, and Tommy's video began to play.

"_Hey Haley. Day six. We're still out near Black Water Ridge. We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow."_ Sam frowned. She'd seen something on that clip. It was for less than a second, and was more a shadow blipping across the screen, but she had definitely seen it. It had been running across the screen, behind Tommy outside his tent. Sam looked up at her brother and Haley, but their faces didn't prompt the young Hunter to think they'd noticed. Sam turned back to the computer. Perhaps Dean was right, and there _was_ something going on here. But if that was the case, was their dad here waiting to tackle the job with their help? Or had he left this one for them to finish without him, too? If that was the case, then where the hell _was_ he, and why had he skipped town yet again? And why the hell couldn't he pick up his fucking phone and just clue them in on what-the-shit was happening? After what had happened back in Palo Alto, California, Sam figured she deserved answers more than anyone else. The demon inside her hissed mutedly.

"Well," piped up Dean, "we'll find your brother. We're heading up to Black Water Ridge first thing."

"Then maybe I'll see you there." Haley walked past them and back to the dining table to join her brother for dinner. Sam and Dean shared a troubled look with each other before sending it over to Haley. She noticed and sighed. "Look, I can't sit around here anymore, so I hired a guide. I'm gonna head out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself." Dean's face softened a little at that.

"I think I know how you feel…" he muttered. Sam's eyes just drifted back to the monitor. That shadow was really bothering her. If she hadn't been specifically looking for something out-of-the-ordinary, she would have missed it. It was that quick. She needed to get these things onto her laptop and examine them more closely.

"Hey, you mind forwarding these to me?" Sam asked, staring at the computer screen.

"Sure," Haley replied. Sam nodded and looked for one moment longer before closing the folder and standing up. She wrote down her email address for Haley on a sticky-note and did her best to ignore the sharp stabs in her hand while she gripped the pen. When that was done, she nodded to Dean and they both thanked the kids for their time as Haley walked them out of the house. Dean glanced at his sister's thoughtful face, walking down the steps to his car.

"You see something, Sammy?"

"I dunno. Maybe. We'll have to wait and see. I wanna go to the library while we wait, though. Poke around a bit." Dean nodded. He'd probably been planning to head there anyways.

When they got in the car, Dean turned on the car and slowly drove away from the house.

"Ya know," he drawled, slowly, "at some point we're going to have to talk about this, Sammy." Sam drew her eyebrows together in confusion. Uhm, what?

"About the case? Isn't that what we were doing already?" Dean gave her a long stare before his eyes settled pointedly on her hand. He looked back up to her and turned forward once more. Sam's face went from confused to empty. Oh. So not that case, then.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about." Sam clenched her teeth, holding the words back in her mouth. She was not going to start this, she was not going to fight. There was nothing to fucking talk about, she was fine. Sam was dealing with her shit the best way she could. She wasn't a liability because of a few damn scratches. And since when did Dean feel the need to get all weepy with her over her feelings? They never talked, about anything. It just wasn't done. It wasn't the Winchester way, and for once in her life, Sam preferred it that way. If he was expecting her to open up and word vomit everything onto him, he was going to be sorely disappointed.

Sam obstinately turned her head away from her brother and looked out the window, refusing to talk. He sighed, but said nothing more on the subject. So much for closer to normal.

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><p><strong>Another long chapter. Aha. Sorry about that, but I did give y'all a warning, yeah?<strong>

**The longer chapters actually mean there's going to be less of them than in Relapse. Just FYI.**

**Review, review, review, my loverlies!**

**Peace.**

**P.S. As a side note... This is going to be my last update for quite a few days. I'm knuckling down to try and find myself a job and figure out the deal with starting school, so I'll be busy for awhile, but fret not my beauties! I won't forget about our lovely SamandDean!**


	3. Job Description

**Hello, my beauties!**

**Much to my surprise, I have a quick minute to put this online! I've been really busy with things these past couples of days, but a good kind of busy. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I'll find a job, I'll need all the help I can get! This chapter is just slightly shorter than the other two, but it's better than nothing!**

**Leave me your thoughts? Please and thank you!**

**Your ever-faithful writer,**

**MD**

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_**

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><p>Research had gone very well for Sam. Dean had spent more time flirting with the intern librarian than actually doing research, so it had all been left to Sam again. Big surprise there. However, Sam was used to the lack of help when it came to digging up the dirt, so she'd just settled down with books and old newspapers articles and started reading. She was perfectly content to do the leg work. Books and research had always held a special place in her heart. Sam figured it had something to do with her intense desire for knowledge, but whatever it was, it helped her find a state of mind she would almost call Utopia. After going through all the books and newspapers, she'd watched the video again, frame by frame and congratulated herself on a job well done. She'd started to string things together, fit more puzzle pieces into the right spots and get more info and what was happening at Black Water Ridge. She hadn't put much together yet, but the sensation of getting closer was very welcome. So, here they were, four hour later in a skeevy bar, sitting at a table in the corner, Sam pulling out her laptop and a folder with the copies of pertinent articles she'd discovered.<p>

"So," Sam began, "Black Water Ridge doesn't get a whole lotta traffic. Local campers mostly, but still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found." She turned to Dean, having gotten out what she needed, and met his gaze evenly.

"Any before that?" Sam opened up the folder and pulled out the small stack of articles. She handed him the stack and leaned back in her seat. Smoke, alcohol and sweat made her nose scrunch up in distaste, but despite the raunchy odor, it was familiar. The cracking of balls at the pool table and muddled conversations of people relaxing after a long stressful day of work added comfortable background noise. It had been almost a ritual for Sam's family to stop at a bar after a job to unwind, and it was often where they would stop in to share gathered intel. Anyone who overheard conversations this way would either be too drunk to remember or figure her family was just telling each other stories sprung from alcohol-addled brains.

"Yeah. In 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack. And again in 1959, and again before that in 1936. This happens every 23 years, just like clockwork." Sam reached forward and opened her laptop to show her brother the video. Dean set the articles down and shoved her in the shoulder. Sam narrowed her eyes over at him but he just looked at her, all smug arrogance that he was.

"Told you something weird was going on!" She rolled her eyes and pulled up the video.

"Whatever, smug bastard. Congratulations on being right about innocent people being harmed." Dean's moment of glory was lost, tainted by guilt at gloating over the pain of others. Sam felt a small wave of shame rush over her. She hadn't meant to be so mean to him. But a larger, darker part of her felt some sort of vindictive satisfaction that he had deflated like that. What the hell was _wrong_ with her today? She needed to keep her shit together or Dean was going to hogtie her until she talked about… stuff. And talking was the last thing she wanted to do.

Sam shifted in her seat and chose to emulate her brother in this case; she acted like nothing had happened and went back to normal. They were just here, discussing a case, no tension, no blame, no guilt. Just fact. Sam liked facts. Facts made sense.

"Alright, watch this, this is the real money shot right here." Dean leaned forward to get a better look at the computer screen. "I downloaded that guy Tommy's video to the laptop. Check this out." Sam paused it right before the shadow appeared on screen and clicked through the next few frames. It only took three frames and the dark shape behind an unknowing, smiling Tommy disappeared. Sam looked over at her brother, excited. He eyes were ocncentrate4d on the laptop monitor.

"Do it again." Sam nodded. She backed up the video until just before the shape appeared and paused it again, going through three frames one at a time. When she was done she sat back and picked at something in the table's woodwork, letting Dean process what he'd just seen for a moment.

"That's three frames, Dean. It's a _fraction_ of a second. Whatever it is, it can _move_." Dean looked troubled at this, but he ruffled Sam's hair with appreciation nonetheless.

"Good work, Sammy." She couldn't deny that she felt a little warmer inside whenever she had impressed her brother and he'd messed with her hair and praised her. Dean was damn near the best Hunter Sam had ever seen, and he never gave out a compliment unless someone seriously deserved it. It made Sam feel girlishly happy getting her brother's respect, which was uncharacteristic for her. She smiled at him. She'd saved the best for last.

"I'm not done yet. There's one more thing." Dean took his hand away and raised an eyebrow in question. Sam pulled out a specific article from the pile and handed it to her brother. "In '59, one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive." Sam closed her laptop and packed it away. Dean put the article down, and Sam put it with the others to pack up the file next.

"Is there a name?" Sam grinned arrogantly at her older brother.

"I'm the fucking _genius_ of this operation, and you don't think I got the name of the damn kid? I'm hurt, Dean." He rolled his eyes and stood up. Sam grabbed her bag pulled it on over her shoulder. She started wading through the crowd towards the exit and the waiting Impala. It was time to pay Mr. Shaw a visit.

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><p>"Look, Rangers, I don't know why you're asking me about this." Sam and Dean stepped into Mr. Shaw's run-down, two room apartment. The smell of stale cigarettes and old beer almost made her vomit, but her iron self-control kept her gag reflex under strict control. Mr. Shaw was an old man, almost 75 now, with white hair, an unshaved face, and pajamas that looked like he hadn't ever taken them off. He had a dying cigarette between his lips, and his brown eyes were hooded under his wrinkled, leathery skin. His beer belly jiggled a little bit when he walked, and Sam tried not to stare at his unkempt appearance, so she looked around the apartment instead.<p>

Green paint was chipping off the walls, and dishes were piled in and around the sink. Different robes and jackets littered almost all available surfaces around the small, cramped rooms, and Shaw sat down in a tattered and ripped, faded yellow armchair. Sam didn't know the condition of the ceiling, but she figured it was bad. She didn't look up to see. She refused to look up. Sam hadn't looked at a single ceiling since _that_ night back at Stanford.

"It's public record," he growled, his voice low and scratchy from the years of smoke and tobacco, "I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a –"

"Grizzly?" Sam interrupted him, finishing his thought. Her tone made it obvious she didn't believe that. "It _that_ what attacked them?" Shaw was lost in his memories for a minute, but after a time he took one last drag from his cigarette and snuffed it out, nodding.

"The other people that went missing that year," Dean stepped forward, "those bear attacks too?" Shaw looked down at that. He didn't nod this time, he had no real answer. "What about all the people that went missing _this_ year? Same thing?" Shaw sighed and ran a shaky hand over his face.

"If we knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it." Sam offered. Shaw chuckled darkly at that.

"I seriously doubt that…" he muttered. "Anyways, I don't see what difference it would make. You wouldn't believe me. Nobody ever did." Sam stepped forward this time until she was sitting at the edge of his messy bed, right next to where Shaw was nursing a glass of whiskey. Cheap whiskey by the smell of it.

"Mr. Shaw, what did you see?" Shaw's watery eyes glanced over Sam's as he put the glass down slowly. He looked at Dean next and then closed his eyes, his face looking gaunt and haunted.

"Nothing," He said weakly, "it moved too fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it, though. A roar, like no man or animal I ever heard." Sam looked over her shoulder to where Dean leaned against the wall, listening intently. She faced Shaw again as his eyes opened. He reached for the glass and downed the rest of it before Sam asked her next question.

"It came at night?" Shaw nodded, looking off to the side, frowning. "Got inside your tent?" His gaze snapped over to Sam and his frowned deepened the wrinkles on his face, making it look older and more worn out that before.

"It got inside our _cabin_." He growled. Sam heard Dean shift around, and she creased her own brow. It got in a cabin? Jesus. "I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came it. It didn't smash a window or break the door…. _It unlocked it_." Sam looked back at her brother worriedly. He was shaking his head and running a hand through his hair. Motherfuck… what _was_ this thing? "You know of a bear that could do something like that?" Sam shook her head at Mr. Shaw. He looked like he couldn't even believe himself, what he was saying was so outlandish. Poor man looked scared out of his wits. He was lost in the traumatic memories for a moment, and when he next spoke, his voice sounded hollow.

"I didn't even wake up until I heard my parents screaming."

"It killed them?" Sam asked. Shaw shrugged.

"Dragged them off into the night. Why it left me alive, been asking myself that ever since." Shaw looked at Dean and then Sam and then out the window he was in front of. "Did leave me this, though."

Shaw pulled down the shirt covering his left shoulder and Sam couldn't stop the gasp that escaped her mouth. Four, long, ugly scars ran from his shoulder to his chest. They were raised above the rest of his skin, and Sam wondered how he had even managed to survive long enough to crawl out of the woods alive. Honestly, that had probably been a mistake on the monster's part. The parents were older, bigger than a young kid version of Mr. Shaw. They had more meat on their bones, which was probably the reason it skipped over Shaw. However, whatever this sonnuva bitch was, it hadn't wanted him to go running back to the rangers for backup, so it had injured him and left him to bleed out. Maybe if it had made the cuts just a little longer or a little deeper, Mr. Shaw wouldn't be here right now, but as it stood, they Hunters had gotten another couple pieces to their puzzle.

"There's something evil in those woods." Sam was pulled out of her thoughts by Shaw's gruff voice. "It was some sort of a demon." Well, no actually, it wasn't a demon. The way this was going down didn't fit the bill for demonic activity at all, but she wasn't about to tell _him_ that. This man had had enough trouble in his life already, she wasn't about to add to it.

Sam stood up as Dean thanked him for all of his help, and they left Mr. Shaw to his thoughts. Once they were out in the hallway, though, they started to spill their thoughts.

"Spirits and demons don't have to open doors if they want inside, they just go through the walls." Sam nodded at that. She was well-versed on spirits and demons, too, thanks.

"So it's probably something else then. Something corporeal." Dean raised his eyebrows and looked over at Sam as they turned around a corner.

"'Corporeal?' Well, excuse me, Professor." Sam rolled her eyes. Her brother was such a smart-ass. She punched his shoulder lightly and he grinned mockingly at her.

"Shut up. So, what do you think?" Dean's grin disappeared as he thought about it for a moment before slowing to a stop and answering.

"The claws, the speed that it moves… could be a Skinwalker. Maybe a Black Dog. Whatever it is we're talking about, we're talking about a creature, and it's 'corporeal.' This means we can kill it." No, Sam didn't think this was a Skinwalker, three frames was too fast for even them, but he could be onto something with the Black Dog theory.

Once they were outside, Dean walked straight to the back of the trunk and unlocked it, pulling the car door and the door covering the arsenal he had stored in the back open. He propped the second one up with a shotgun and looked behind his shoulder, making sure the coast was clear. Dean pulled a green cloth duffle bag out and laid it down, loading an assortment of weapons into the bag. He was grabbing a variety of things, trying to cover as many bases as he could, and Sam watched on silently, pointing out a weapon he should pack up every now and then.

They had all these weapons, all this knowledge. They were defended with the know-how and the means to take care of whatever it was that was up there terrorizing people. Haley had said she was going up to Black Water Ridge tomorrow… what the hell did _she_ have?

"Dean," Sam called out softly. He grunted, looking over the weapons in the bag for anything he'd missed, "we can't let that Haley girl go out there tomorrow." Dean looked up at her, pulling a knife out from somewhere and tossing it in the bag then looked back down and started inspecting his loot again.

"Oh yeah? And what are we gonna tell her, that she can't go into the woods because of a big, scary monster?" Sam glared at her brother and crossed her arms. She was trying to protect another innocent life and stop Haley's useless, defenseless ass from getting both of _them_ killed. He didn't have to use that sarcasm shit when she was trying to think ahead.

"No, Dean. Obviously we can't tell her that, but we have to tell her something. That girl _cannot_ go out there tomorrow." Dean sighed and straightened up, looking at his sister with reluctant resolve in his eyes.

"Her brother's missing, Sam, she's not just gonna sit this out. No, we go with her, we protect her, and we keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator friend." Sam's glare deepened. No, Haley was a problem. She was going to make their job harder, and they were already going into this half-blind. Sam didn't fucking need some whiny little bitch once shit started to hit the fan to lug around and look out for.

Sam felt each word Dean said breathing hot life to that demon inside her that she'd put to sleep earlier. The trickles of frustration started out slow, but as the demon woke up more and more, her frustration grew to irritation and finally anger. Dean grabbed the duffle bag out of the trunk and Sam slammed both of the trunk doors shut at once, barely waiting for his hands to clear from getting smashed by the trunk door. Her brother jumped at the sudden noise and glared at her for treating his car with such force, but he stopped when he saw her face. He looked a little shocked now, on top of pissed and confused.

"So finding Dad isn't enough? Now we have to fucking babysit too?" The demon egged her on, whispered words of anger to stoke the flames she'd felt earlier. Sam balled her injured hand tightly, wincing at the pain, trying to use it to maintain control. She needed this pain, or she was going to snap out of control again. She focused hard on that sharp burning in her knuckles so that she could try and explain her thoughts to Dean without just ripping him a new one. "Dean, she's going to get someone hurt. They _always_ get someone hurt, and it's usually us. We do not _need_ a fucking blubbering mess when we get up there. I don't really give a shit that she can't wait for her brother to come running back home to her and that brat. She CANNOT go out there tomorrow."

Her hand throbbed. Her demon roared. It was a delicate balance. Sam could feel it, just under her skin, waiting for the right words to focus in on and make her control slip. The urge to start wailing on someone and make them bleed was just barely held in check. Sam didn't even know herself anymore What the hell was she turning into? A streak of fear cut through her anger, making it dim. Her hand throbbed. Her head hurt. She wasn't normally so violently angry. Who the hell was she these days?

Dean gave Sam a long look. She broke the gaze first and stared at the Impala, avoiding the penetrating green eyes in front of her. She didn't want her brother to know her so well, she didn't want him to see this side of her. It ashamed her and scared her, and she had no idea how to get a grip on it. Everything made her angry these days. Sam hadn't been an angry person by nature before. Sarcastic, sure, rough around the edges, yeah. But so intensely furious that she wanted to beat someone to a bloody pulp just for the sheer violent act of it? No. Never. Sam had been a caring person for those who earned that compassion from her, and she went through a lot to make sure those important to her were happy. She had never before wanted to break someone, regardless of if they'd done anything or not, just because she was so furious that her anger couldn't be contained. Sam was changing into something darker than she had been before she'd started traveling with Dean again, and it was scaring the shit out of her. She didn't know how to stop it or reverse it. So Sam kept her eyes away from her brother and his searching stare. She wasn't the only one that could read her sibling like an open book. Dean knew her better than anybody else, it was nearly impossible to hide things from him.

"What the hell is _wrong_ with you today?" Sam balled her fist tighter in her leather jacket, hiding the flinch when her knuckles protested. Pain. Fear. Box. Prison. These were key.

"Nothing. I'm fine. I just… I don't think it's a good idea for Haley to come along is all." Sam muttered this, but she knew Dean had caught the lie. He scoffed.

"Yeah, you're just fan-fucking-tastic, Sammy. Seriously what's –"

"Don't." Sam cut him off and brought her gaze up long enough to stare at Dean, begging him with her eyes not to ask the question. If he pestered her about it, her tenuous control over herself would snap, and that would be the end of that. "Just… don't."

Dean glared and shook his head, stalking off to throw the duffle bag on the back seat. Sam watched as he slammed the door shut and then got in behind the wheel and slammed that door shut too. She sighed and hung her head, trudging over to her side and slowly crawling in next to her brother, who was still glaring out the windshield.

"Haley said she was going, Sam. It's her choice, I'm not going to do anything to stop her. End of discussion." Sam just looked out the window. The demon hissed at her from behind the wall of fear and pain she'd built, upset with being held back. She looked out at the passing trees and bulidings as they started off towards their motel to sleep for the night. She didn't unclench her fist until she had crawled into bed to sleep for the night, many hours later.

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><p><strong>I hope that you all enjoyed this chapter. Let me know your thoughts and comments! Dunno when my next update will be, so don't get your hopes up or anything. Sorry!<strong>

**Peace.**


	4. Black Water Ridge

**Hello, my darlings!**

**Between all the running around I've done and how much I've been crashing on the couch, I haven't had any time to get around to W.W. However, I finally found some time! Thank God for small miracles, yeah?**

**The group finally gets up to the woods! Ohhhhhhhhh snap. Just three more chapters after this one, and the second "episode" is finished. We're already over halfway done, y'all! Crazy, innit? Makes me feel excited.**

**As always, reviews are love!**

**Yours,**

**M**D

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_**

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><p>Dealing with a migraine was a shitty way to start off the day, Sam decided. Dealing with a migraine after only two hours of sleep was worse. Add in another horrid nightmare that left Sam gasping for breath around the aching wound in her chest, and there was the fucking cherry on top. It had left her waking up with a pounding already behind her eyes, and she'd knew right then and there that today was going to suck some major balls. It had still been dark out when Sam had gotten out of bed for the day, and Dean had been snoring in the bed next to hers. Really, it wasn't all that loud, but his snoring had just grated her ears raw like sandpaper, and that rawness had sped straight into her brain. It had hurt to move, hurt to breathe, hurt to think. At least the room was pitch black, though. If the light had been on, or the sun in her face, Sam might have started crying. It was the little things that helped, really.<p>

She'd silently slipped from bed with the promise of a shower, swaying and stumbling into the dingy bathroom where she had shed her Van Halen t-shirt and black boxers and showered in the dark under scalding hot water. When that was done, she'd slipped out of the room and silently felt around for an outfit from the bag next to her bed and dressed in the bathroom, still in the dark. She liked the darkness, truth be told. The lack of vision was so calming for her. Her head still hurt like a bitch, but the cold blackness of the room around her helped keep her stress levels low. When Sam had finished getting dressed and brushed her hair, she'd gone back to her bed and laid down under the blankets, shoving her head under her pillow, and remained perfectly still. Sam drained all thoughts from her head and just concentrated on breathing in and out, slowly. She knew there was the promise of help from her medication, but after that was gone, then that was it. The prospect of having to deal with her chronic head pains without medicinal help was intimidating, and she was hesitant to reach for the bottle, she only had two of them left, after all.

As it happened to turn out, lying there under the pillows and slowing her brain down helped a lot, and by the time Dean practically fell out of bed and wandered off towards the bathroom, the incessant drilling had lessened to just a dull ache. Sam had stayed in bed the whole time Dean was getting ready, and she only moved when he barked at her to get her ass out of bed, and even then, she was slow.

Sam grabbed the green bag on her way out the door, and after a moment's hesitation she grabbed her pill bottle as well, following her brother parked right in front of their motel room. She tossed their bag on the backseat and got in next to her brother. Her hand didn't hurt as bad today, which she was grateful for as they left for Black Water Ridge to go meet up with Haley. Like she'd said… the little things.

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><p>When Dean and Sam had stopped and turned off the car, Haley had been shaking her head in disbelief at the Impala. Sam wanted to groan and throttle the stupid girl when she saw that her younger brother was coming along too. Great, just great. Fan-fucking-tastic, now she had an even younger and more <em>annoying<em> problem to make sure didn't get his ignorant self eaten or slaughtered. Dean noticed her rising temper with a warning stare before leaving Sam to grab the duffel out of the car and walking up to Haley. She looked ready to go on a long hike, with her shorts, hiking boots, rainproof jacket and huge backpack that probably held a whole manner of things. Nothing that would help her up here against whatever nasty could be working its mojo, of course. No, everything they would need for _that_ was in the duffel bag Sam had slung over her shoulder.

"You guys got room for two more?" Haley looked at Dean for a moment, cocking her head to the side.

"Wait, you wanna come with us?" Sam rolled her eyes and stood behind Dean. No, genius. Having you around is quite possibly the worst idea possible for this situation, but did that matter? Nah, 'course not. Why would it matter? It was only your _life_ after all. Dipshit.

"Who are these guys?" It was then that Sam noticed the man standing behind Haley. He had gray hair, trimmed close to his scalp, and scruffy, bristly facial hair. His eyes sparkled with intelligence and silent observation. He wore a black thermal shirt under an open flannel and a tan vest over that, his blue jeans faded with use. He had on a pair of scuffed hiking boots and a double barrel shotgun in his hands. Sam guessed him to be around 45 years old. The man was examining the siblings right back, and she wanted to throw up when his eyes traveled up and down her body. His gaze lasted a little too long for her comfort. Sam might kick his testicles up his ass for that look.

Haley's brother stood next to him, peering at the Wunchesters suspiciously. He was less prepared than his sister, wearing a black t-shirt, a gray jacket and a pair of Converse. He too had a backpack, though, so that was something at least. It would amount to nothing all the same, but whatever.

"Apparently," Haley turned back to her guide, her hands on her hips, "this is all the park service could muster up for the search and rescue." Sam caught the bitterness and shook her head slowly, walking past the trio.

'_You're lucky we got here on time to leave with you,'_ Sam growled in her head. Whatever. Sam just wanted to get up there, get their brother, gank this bitch, look for her dad, and then get back to the motel room so she could stick her head under the pillow and die. She wanted this day to be over. Damn migraines. Thank God for those last two pills and that quick bite to eat she'd forced out of Dean before they'd gotten up here.

The man looked skeptically at Dean, who stood there nonchalantly. Dean and Sam didn't really care if they 'had room' for them or not, they were coming either way. How would they stop them? Hold a gun on them? Sam halted and turned around when she was a little ways ahead of them, and looked back to stare at the group behind her, tapping her foot impatiently, her right hand shoved deep into her leather jacket.

"You're rangers?" Dean nodded carefully looking the guide in the eyes.

"That's right." Haley gave Dean the once over, raising her eyebrows when her eyes met his again.

"And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?" Her voice sounded cynical as it asked the question. Dean looked down at his favorite pair of jeans and black boots and then at Haley pointedly.

"Oh, sweetheart, I don't _do_ shorts." With that Dean brushed past a huffing Haley and walked towards a highly unamused Sam. The guide scowled as Dean drew closer to where he stood with his shotgun by the open tailgate of his truck.

"Oh, you think this is funny?" Dean stopped a little past the hired help and turned to look back at him, irked. "It's dangerous backcountry out there, her brother might be hurt." Dean smiled stiffly at the hunter, throwing his sister a look that reflected a small measure of her own irritation.

"Believe me," Dean stabbed at the guide, "I know how dangerous it can be. We just wanna help them find their brother, that's all." He didn't look convinced, but Dean wasted no more breath on the matter and instead continued on. Sam followed but at a slower pace. It wasn't long before Haley, her brother, and her guide caught up to them. The guide took up the front with Dean while Haley and the boy traveled between the two Hunters. Sam had subtly slowed her pace until she was the last one, taking up the rear, keeping a trained ear to the forest around them. She had to watch their asses on the way to Black Water… literally. Sam determined at that moment that she really hated babysitting.

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><p>The hike up was long and tedious, and it left Sam too much time to think for her taste. She didn't want to think. Thinking led to dangerous places, places her mind refused to wander, so, for no other reason than to distract herself, Sam had forced Haley's brother into a conversation. It took a little coercion, but once she'd flashed him a warm smile and asked a few gentle questions, she'd gotten him talking. Sam learned his name was Ben, and the guide's name was Roy. Ben had been born here in Colorado, though his hometown was in Aspen. He was indeed only 15, and was currently a sophomore in high school. He enjoyed his Biology and advanced placement art classes the most, and wanted to be a molecular biologist when he grew up. His favorite color was yellow (meh), and he listened to a lot of post-rock (ick). His favorite band at the moment was called Built to Spill. Sam had never heard of it before in her whole life.<p>

Sam tried to avoid answering too many questions about herself, and when Ben realized that she wasn't going to be as forthcoming with personal information, he seemed a little put-out. She knew it wasn't exactly fair of her to learn so much about him without offering a little something in return, but there wasn't too much she could tell him without blowing their cover wide open, and the stuff she _could_ tell him was mostly what she was using him to not think about. Ben was a polite kid, though, and respected her desire for privacy. It made Sam like him a little bit more and think of him less like a pain-in-the-ass-burden on the Hunt she was on. She couldn't say the same for Haley. Sam had no idea what it was about the chick that just rubbed her the wrong way, but Haley Collins seemed to be a subconscious professional at sparking Sam's ire. There was just something about her that made Sam want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her back forth until her head popped off and rolled away. This was odd, really, considering how cooperative she'd been with Sam and Dean in answering their questions and forwarding those pictures to them just the other day. So, Sam was confused and alarmed by her irrational irritation with Haley, but recognizing that it was illogical didn't make it go away.

God, she was such a fucking nutcase. She needed to get a hold on herself; Sam couldn't afford to let her emotions be this spastic on a Hunt. She'd been bitching last night about how Haley was going to get someone hurt with her ignorance, but with how Sam was calm one moment and ready to throw punches the next, she was just as liable to get someone injured. And what was _her_ excuse? Sam was _trained_ to handle these kinds of situations with rationality and composure. Falling apart was unacceptable. She couldn't afford to be weak, and Dean couldn't afford for her not to have his back. He was literally trusting his life to her on every Hunt, just as she did with him, and having her cuckoo-for-Coco-Puffs was just _not_ an option.

Once Ben and Sam had talked about everything they could without it getting awkward, they fell silent and Sam slowed down until she was in the back again. It wasn't as tense as it had been at the rear of the single-file line, and Sam was able to walk on in comfortable silence, much more together now that she'd had time to compartmentalize and zero in on what was important. Everything else just went in the box. It could all be dealt with later. She mused in the silence, that she felt a new camaraderie with the young boy after their gentle, unobtrusive conversation.

"So, Roy, you said you did a little hunting." Dean piped up behind the man. Sam kept an ear on the conversation, all the while looking around the forest, scoping out for possible signs of danger. Multitasking, what a gift.

"Yeah, more than a little hunting." Sam could just picture Dean's face at that. He was probably imagining all the animals Roy had shot and killed and how what _they_ Hunted could tear them all to bits.

"Uh-huh. What kind of furry critters do you hunt?" Sam rolled her eyes. Did Dean really feel the need to establish his superiority _now_ of all times? She was the only one who would even know there was a double-meaning to this conversation, let alone understand it, and she already knew Dean was the better out of the two, so she didn't really see the point.

"Mostly buck. Sometimes bear." Roy looked off to the side and stopped walking, his eyes roaming over the trees, and Dean slowly walked past him.

"Tell me," her brother snickered, "Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?" Roy's hand shot out and grabbed a fist full of Dean's clothes, yanking him back so hard that Sam's brother almost fell over. Haley and Ben stopped, watching the interaction with tense eyes. Sam stopped next to Ben and gently lowered the duffle bag to the ground, tensing her muscles to leap into action. So help her God, if Roy tried to do something she was going to break his nose before he could even twitch a muscle in Dean's direction.

'_Come on, come on. Do it. Give me a reason, I'm begging you.'_ Sam whispered inside her mind. The demon purred approvingly. It had never really gone away since it had woken up last night.

"Whatcha doin', Roy?" Dean muttered. His eyes were gauging Roy's body, and her brother tensed in preparation to dodge a swing. Roy simply released Dean's clothes slowly and bent down to the ground to pick up a long stick. Dean watched Roy carefully, suspiciously. The older man jabbed the stick down at the ground and everyone else jumped at the sharp clanging sound and snapping twig. Roy had just saved her brother from walking right into a bear trap. No broken noses today, then. Sam was kind of disappointed.

Roy smiled smugly at Dean, who was now staring wide-eyed at the bear trap, looking a little sick.

"You should watch where you're stepping… _ranger_." Dean recovered fast and threw his surprise behind a huff and a shaking head. Sam slowly picked up her duffel bag again and threw it over her left shoulder once more, the weapons inside rustling a little bit. She kicked a stick angrily as everyone began walking along once more, letting Haley and Ben pass her by before she followed suit. It would have been nice to be able to physically work out some of the aggression she couldn't ever seem to get rid of these days. Dean walked a little slower than Roy now, taking the hunter's advice and watching where he was walking.

Haley's posture changed, catching Sam's attention. She threw her hair back and walked at a brisker pace, her shoulders squared and her head held high. She was determined about something, and Sam soon caught on that that something was talking to her brother. She threw a furtive glance around the forest before focusing all her spare attention on the irritating girl. Sam was both curious and wary of Haley's sudden interest in Dean.

"You didn't pack any provisions." She accused. Dean didn't even flinch. "You guys are carrying a _duffle bag_. You two aren't rangers, so who the hell _are_ you?" Haley stopped walking at this, and grabbed Dean's arm, spinning him around to face her. Ben passed his sister and Sam's brother, following after Roy. Sam stopped behind Haley and stared at her brother. She cocked her head to the side, silently asking if he wanted her to continue on without him. He nodded softly, and Sam hefted the duffle bag a little. She walked slowly past Haley and nudged her brother's shoulder with her own gently, letting him know she was there, before she walked on.

She didn't catch up to Roy and Ben, though. Nah, she walked over to a tree just a few feet away and leaned against it, setting the duffle bag on the ground and pointedly examining her fingernails. She wasn't leaving her brother alone for a second, not if there was some supernatural freaky shit happening in these woods. Besides, she could still see the two guys ahead of her. They'd realized that they'd surpassed everyone else by a good distance and were now taking a small break while they were waiting for the rest of the group to catch up. At this distance, she could listen to what Haley had to say to her brother and still watch over the guys up ahead. Awesome. Haley frowned at Sam a little, but the little princess could fucking deal. Bitch.

"Sam and I are siblings," Dean explained, "and we're looking for our father. He might be here, we don't know. I just figure that you and me… we're in the same boat." Haley frowned up at Dean and crossed her arms.

"Why didn't you just tell me that from the start?" He shrugged. Um, gee, you ever think that maybe it was none of your fucking _business_ to know? Sam rolled her eyes.

"Well, I'm telling you _now_. Besides, that's probably the most honest I've ever been with a woman. Ever." Sam grinned down at her hands at that. He wasn't lying there. He had a messy track record with women, his dishonesty with them at the heart of it all.

"So," Dean muttered after a few moments, "we okay?" Haley thought about it, but she eventually nodded. Well, there wasn't anything else for Sam to hear; no reason to stick around anymore. Their conversation was winding down; time to keep moving. She picked up the duffle bag once more and started to wade through the vegetation towards Roy and Ben's resting spot. Dean and Haley soon caught up, her brother munching on a bag of Peanut M&Ms, his preferred candy of choice.

Eventually Roy came to a stop in one part of the woods and looked around, his gaze resting on the group. On Sam specifically. She deliberately refused to return his gaze.

"This is it," Roy commented, "Black Water Ridge."

"What coordinates are we at?" Sam asked him. He pulled something out of his jacket and peered down at the screen.

"35 at -111." Sam bit her lip and looked around, stopping on her brother's face. Those were the coordinates they'd gotten from their dad, but he was nowhere to be seen. He could be hiding in the woods, of course, but she had the sinking feeling that wasn't the case this time. From the look on her brother's face, he didn't think their father was around either.

"You hear that?" he whispered. Sam nodded. Yes, of course, she'd been purposefully listening to the forest the moment they'd began this adventure of theirs.

"Yeah," she whispered back to him, "not even crickets." It made Sam's skin crawl, there was something here, she just knew it. She couldn't tell if it was watching them or not, but it was here. In these woods. Sam looked hard and deep into the forest, looking between the trees for any sign of movement. Nothing.

"I'm gonna go take a look around," Roy stated. Sam glanced back at him before continuing her examinations of the woods around them.

"You shouldn't go off by yourself," she grumbled. Couldn't he notice the lack of life around them? A forest like this should be teeming with it, practically overflowing, but there wasn't a single sound to be heard. Not a breeze to rustle the leaves. Roy smiled something oily at Sam; she saw it out of the corner of her eye and shuddered.

"That's sweet, sugar. Don't you worry about me." Sam thought that he meant it to come out as a coo, but it sounded more predatory than anything to her. Dean glared hard at the man, but this only made his smile grow wider. If Roy didn't stop staring at her like that, she was going to take her gun out of the bag and shoot his kneecaps off. Sam reflexively squeezed her right hand and flinched.

'_Calm down, Sam. Calm down. You've dealt with this before, you can handle this now too.' _Sam repeated this like a mantra in her head, and when Roy walked past, she grabbed her brother's arm to stop him from storming after the creepy bastard. She smiled at him and shook her head. Dean's glare turned into a dark scowl, but he nodded and turned back to Haley and Ben. Not before shaking off Sam's hand, of course.

"Alright" Dean nearly growled, "everybody stays together. Let's go." Sam let her brother storm off this time, taking a last lingering look at the trees around her as Haley and Ben passed her before following after them.

It was another hour before they finally reached Tommy's campsite. Sam had been leafing through their dad's journal, trying to get the last piece worked into the puzzle, so she didn't notice when everyone ahead of her had stopped. She nearly knocked Ben over when she ran into him, actually, but her right hand shot out and grabbed him before he could fall, making her wince and gasp hard at the sudden flare in pain. Sam hastily put the journal in a pocket on the inside of her leather jacket and looked at her right hand. There were spots of blood that had soaked through the gauze. She'd probably reopened the wound again between all of the times she'd clenched her fist together. God dammit. Sam dropped her hand with a resigned sigh and looked up, finally noticing the state of the campsite everyone was already gaping at, and it was a pretty grisly picture. Two tents were completely shredded to thin strips of fabric, most of them covered in blood. Clothes were strewn all over the camp, food was scattered everywhere. There was barely anything left intact by the previous campers; it was obvious something had attacked them.

"Looks like a grizzly," Roy said solemnly. Ah, no. That would be wrong, thanks. This was no grizzly attack. This was the handiwork of their 'fuzzy predator friend' as Dean had so eloquently put it last night. Sam let the bag fall to the ground and popped her neck, settling into the Hunting mode and walking into the campsite. Dean copied her, and the both of them silently meandered around the tents and chaos, keeping a close eye out for anything. Sam was thinking about the journal. She'd come across something that might make sense, but there weren't any indications that a Wendigo was what they were dealing with. They still hadn't found any evidence that this creature could mimic a human voice, but the claw marks and speed matched with one right on the money. Still, Sam would wait a little bit before sharing her thoughts with her brother.

Haley finally pulled out of her stupor and rushed forward, throwing her backpack to the ground. Ben let his slip off too, staring at one of the tents in horror. Sam felt for the boy, but she didn't have the time to see if he was okay.

"Tommy!" Haley yelled. No response. Sam whirled around, heading for Haley. Fucking _idiot_ was going to draw the fucking monster right to them if she kept going on like that. "Tommy!" Louder this time. Still no answer. "_Tommy!_" Haley yelled as loud as she could, and Sam snarled, gripping Haley's arm and spinning her around.

"Will you keep it _down_?" Haley's brow knitted in confusion at Sam's harsh whisper.

"Why?" Sam looked out at the trees, nervous. If this was a Wendigo then it probably had heard Haley's shouting and was on its way over. If it wasn't already here, of course.

"Something might still be out there." Haley still looked bewildered, but there was a hint of fear added into the mix now. Good. Sam hoped she was fucking terrified. She looked up at the sky. Just a few hours until nightfall. If she was right about this, when night came… well, they wouldn't live very long if she was right. Sam prayed that she wasn't.

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><p><strong>Reviews, darlings, reviews make the world spin! Well... my world, at least.<strong>

**Peace!**


	5. This Far West

**Hello, pretties!**

**I'm just about to head out the door, but while I was getting ready, I figured I had enough time to throw this up online. It's funny, I have a lot more time to post to W.W than I thought I would. /shrug**

**I'm not complaining!**

**Let me know whatchy'all think!**

**Yours,**

**MD**

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_**

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><p>"Sam!" Dean's voice called her away from Haley, who was now looking at the trees as if they would start moving at any moment. Sam jogged over to where her brother was crouched down near a cluster of trees, examining a few drag marks leading away from the camp. She crouched next to him, and he turned to her grimly.<p>

"The bodies were dragged from the campsite. But here," Dean pointed to a spot where the trail suddenly stopped, "the tracks just vanish. It's weird." Her brother sighed and stood up, but Sam picked up some dirt and rubbed it between her fingers, thinking. She wiped it off after a minute and stood up next to her brother, thoughtful. "I'll tell you what," Dean turned and started to walk away, mumbling, "it's no Skinwalker or Black Dog."

No. No, it wasn't. Sam had pretty much ruled out a Skinwalker from the beginning though, but now a Black Dog was out of the picture too. They didn't vanish with their prey like this. There would have been tracks that led somewhere. Probably to a mangled corpse, but it would have been somewhere.

Dean and Sam joined their three companions at the campsite. Sam slumped against a tree, feeling exhausted, and clearing her head to try and sort through the mud to the facts they had at hand. Dean, however, walked over to where Haley sat on the ground, picking up a bloody and broken cell phone, sniffling. His face looked sympathetic, and although Sam couldn't hear what he was saying to the girl, she could guess. He was trying to give her some hope that her brother was still alive, if his expression was anything to go by. She ignored them and just leaned against the tree, lost in her jumbled thoughts. She was so wrapped up inside her head that she didn't notice when Ben came up next to her. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw him standing sullenly next to her, as silent as the forest around them.

"Holy _fuck_, Ben! Don't scare me like that!" Ben looked down at his feet sheepishly, muttering an apology. Sam sighed and passed a hand over her face. Now was not the time to be yelling at the boy. "You okay?" Ben shrugged. Sam understood that. She patted his shoulder gently and he looked up at her with wet eyes. Her face fell, she didn't know what to do. She wasn't sure if he wanted a hug or to cry on her shoulder or whatever, but that wasn't her thing. She didn't let people sob on her and she didn't whisper sweet, comforting words into their hair. So, Sam just squeezed his shoulder a little tighter, smiling sadly at him. She didn't tell him everything was going to be okay; Ben wasn't an idiot and Sam wasn't going to lie to him like that just to make him feel better. It was a very real possibility that their brother Tommy wasn't even alive, and giving him false hope would make it hurt that much more if he was dead.

"Will you be all right, Ben?" Ben opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a man's voice crying out from the woods, begging for help. Everyone shot to their feet and took off, running away from camp and towards the direction they'd heard the man crying out from. After a couple minutes the yelling stopped, and everyone slowed down to a halt, looking around wildly. Roy had his gun at the ready, looking around carefully. Sam's eyes roamed over the trees. She didn't see anything or anyone. No blood or signs that there was an injured person nearby. There weren't even any footprints around here. Dread filled her stomach. She wished she had their duffel bag of weapons right about now. Wait… hadn't she left the weapons back at the bloodied campsite?

'_Mother_fuck_.'_ Sam cursed inside her head.

"It seemed like it was coming from around here, wasn't it?" No one answered Haley for a long while. Sam took one last look around the woods before she finally broke the heavy silence.

"Everyone back to camp." It didn't take any more than that before they were all running back in the direction they had come. The trip back seemed to take longer, but that was probably just the trepidation affecting Sam's perception of time. She ran ahead of everyone, eager to prove herself wrong. No such luck.

Sam stopped in the middle of the campsite as everyone else caught up to her. Haley was the first one after Sam to notice the problem. Her head whirled around, but their backpacks were nowhere in sight. Just the shredded tents and bloody clothes.

"Our packs!" Haley groaned. Roy walked over to where he'd set his bag down and kicked at a rock.

"So much for my GPS and satellite phone…" Dean's eyes met Sam's at the same moment, his eyes glancing at the campsite in question. She minutely shook her head and she saw her brother mutter a curse. No weapons, no food, no shelter, no phone. They were as good as dead like this.

"What the hell's going on?" Haley demanded of nobody in particular. Sam debated telling her. She wasn't sure if any of these people would believe her, but it wasn't right to keep them in the dark. They might not believe her, and they'd probably call her psycho, but at least they'd have the knowledge.

"It's smart." Sam breathed, hesitating at first. Haley and Ben looked over at her when she started talking. Dean was leaning against a tree, his arms folded, an angry expression on his face. "It wants to cut us off so we can't call for help."

"You mean some_one_," Roy replied, "some nutjob out there just stole all our gear." Sam didn't say anything back. Instead, she caught her brother's eyes and jerked her head to the left, indicating she wanted to talk to him alone. They walked back over to the cluster of trees where Dean had found the drag marks, and Sam pulled the journal out of her jacket, tearing it open and flipping the pages rapidly. She stopped on the page describing Wendigos and skimmed it over before turning the journal so Dean could read it.

"All right. There ya go. Check it out." Dean squinted down at the page and scoffed.

"Oh come on," he looked up, doubtful, "Wendigos are in the Minnesota woods or, or in northern Michigan. I've never even heard of one this far west." Sam flipped the book back around and red over the tell-tale signs of a Wendigo.

"Think about it, Dean," she muttered, "the claws, the speed, the way it can mimic a human voice." Sam snapped the book shut and stuffed it back in her jacket, shoving her hands deep in her side pockets and staring at her brother. It took him a little while to come around to the same conclusion but once he did he pulled out the only gun he had from the back of his waist.

"Great," he said dryly, waving his gun in the air, "well then _this_ is useless." Sam just looked back over to the campsite where their three clueless and vulnerable charges were chattering worriedly.

"I knew it was a bad fucking idea for them to come." But had Dean listened to her? No. He wanted to let Haley decide for herself. He'd said they could protect her. Said it was her choice, her brother was missing. Well, was he regretting that yet?

"God, do you _always_ have to rub it in my face when you're right?" Sam glared at her brother out of the corner of her eye before looking back over to Ben and Haley. He was one to talk.

"I do not. And shut up, we need to focus. How are we going to get these people to safety with no weapons to speak of? We need to get them _out_ of here, Dean." Sam strode forward. She was just gonna lay the cards out there and see what direction this went. Leave now and live, or stay here and probably die. "All right, listen up. It's time to go. Things have gotten… more complicated." All heads looked at her and she stopped and put her hands on her hips.

"Cutie, don't worry. Whatever's out there, I can handle it." Sam turned and gave Roy a hot glare.

"Oh it's not _me_ I'm worried about. If you shoot this bitch, you're only gonna piss it off. We have to haul ass and get the hell _out_ of here, Roy. And you call me 'cutie' again, and I'll break your fucking leg." Dean watched his sister warily. She wasn't surprised, what with how she'd acted yesterday. He probably expected her to rip at Roy's face if he said anything else. Sam wasn't sure how she was going to react, but she could feel the demon spewing into her system, and ripping at the stupid man's face didn't sound like such a bad idea at the moment. She clenched her teeth and took a deep breath. She could handle this. Sam tossed the demon behind the door and locked it, forcing her anger back.

Roy's face turned from sleazy to angry. "One, you're talking nonsense. Two, you're in no position to be giving anybody orders, _girlie_." Sam blinked. Had he really just used her gender to try and put her beneath him? _Him_? Sam cracked the knuckles in her left hand menacingly, but her brother stepped in before Sam could take action. Murderous blood boiled in her veins, and it would take nothing at all for her to just snap his head around so fast that Sam would literally feel the crack of his neck when he died. He wouldn't even see it coming, either. She'd be too fast. Her demonic rage hummed appreciatively, adding its strength to her muscles, egging her on for the kill.

"Hey," Dean snapped, taking a step towards the hunter, "cool it, both of you." Sam took that moment to take a step away from Roy in horror, hardly believing that she'd literally just been thinking about how easy it would be to kill another human being. She spun around, refusing to look at anyone and stood there, shaking. She desperately sealed her right hand shut as tight as she could, and she even scratched at the gauze with her left hand to increase the painful friction, trying to get a hold of herself. Her emotions were scaring the shit out of her. Seriously. She wasn't this always-ready-to-kill-you kind of angry, and she wanted to just make it all stop so she could finally give her poor brain a rest. But the only way she would truly be able to make it stop is if she was able to just talk this shit out of her system; if she was able to use her voice to literally shove her torment and guilt and pain away from herself. The only person she would even feel _remotely_ comfortable talking to about all of this was her brother, and he never wanted to talk things over. Ever. The first sign of a real discussion involving emotions and feelings, and he shut down. It was just how he'd worked, and it was all their dad's fault. If their father hadn't pushed Dean to be such a _soldier_, such a _man_, then he wouldn't constantly shove everyone away. Sam may get the special treatment because of how they'd grown up together, but it took a lot of manipulation and careful wording to get her brother to open up and actually talk.

No, she wouldn't be getting what she needed from Dean. Better to just do what her brother does and shove it all behind masks that he used to hide from even himself and drown his sorrow in work or booze. The stabs in her knuckles helped her mind go pleasantly apathetic, and once she felt confident that she could look everyone in the face without her hands twitching with the urge to punch and tear at their soft flesh, she turned back to Roy. Apathy was such a white, comfortable place to be. She didn't have to care about a thing, and not even anger could reach her there. Nothing could. Not a single one of those damn, pesky emotions could touch Sam when she wrapped herself in that blanket of I-don't-care-about-anything-anymore. Dean was watching her through narrowed eyes, suspicious and apprehensive.

"We never should have let you guys come out here in the first place, all right? I'm trying to save your life." Sam deadpanned at the older hunter. He threw his head back and laughed at her.

"Save my life? I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still –"

"Stop! Stop it!" Haley stepped away from a frightened looking Ben and got between Sam and Roy, looking both of them in the eyes. "Everybody just stop it!" Haley turned and looked at Sam, and Sam could see the fear in her eyes. The fear and determination. This girl was tougher than she'd given her credit for. "Look, Tommy might still be alive, and I'm not leaving here without him."

Sam looked over at Dean expectantly, Haley's eyes following suit. Dean scratched his head and exhaled a long, slow breath out. He considered Haley and her brother for a moment, completely ignoring Roy when he walked away grumbling and shaking his head.

"This thing is a good hunter in the day, but an unbelievable hunter at night. We'll never beat it, not in the dark. We need to settle in and protect ourselves." Haley shifted uncomfortably, but held on to that resolve Sam had seen.

"How?" Without a word Dean picked up a long stick and knelt down, scratching a symbol into the dirt. It was simple enough.. A circle with three lines coming out on opposite sides. It was an Anasazi symbol for protection. Haley watched with interest as Sam silently picked up a stick and started on another side of the campsite. It was already starting to get dark.

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><p>They'd managed to get a fire going once the temperature started to drop, and Haley sat holding Ben's hand as Dean finished one last symbol, Roy peering over his shoulder. When Dean finished he stood up and walked slowly around the circle of symbols him and Sam and drawn into the dirt, looking for any holes. Haley watched him for a moment.<p>

"Tell me again, that's…?" She asked.

"Anasazi symbols." Dean answered without looking up. "It's uh, for protection. The Wendigo can't cross over them." Roy just scoffed. Dean continued, unperturbed, still not looking up from the ground. "Nobody likes a skeptic, Roy."

Dean finished his inspection and peered up and out into the night before turning around and tossing his drawing stick into the fire. He walked past Haley and Ben, and headed where Sam was sitting on a trunk on the edge of the shadows, just staring off into the distance. He crouched down in front of her and stared at her face until her gaze hesitantly shifted to his face.

"You wanna tell me what's going on in the freaky head of yours?" Sam sighed down at her brother and moved around on the trunk, uncomfortable.

"Dean –"

"No, you're _not_ fine." He interrupted. She bit her lip and looked away, roaming over the dark outlines of trees she could barely make out in the night. "Sam, look at me." She chewed on her lip and stubbornly avoided his gaze instead. Dean reached up and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look down at her brother's piercing stare. "You're like a ticking time bomb, Sammy, it's not like you. One minute you're your freaky geeky self, and the next you look like you want to kill someone, and I have no friggin' idea how you got there." Dean dropped his hand away from her chin, concern buried deep in his green eyes, dark in the firelight. "_I'm_ supposed to be the belligerent one, remember?"

Dean touched her right hand lightly, drawing attention to her injured knuckles. He was telling her everything in that one gesture. _You're scaring me, Sammy, and I'm just waiting for you to snap. Look at what you're doing to yourself with all that anger inside. How could you hurt yourself, Sammy? Let me protect you. Let me be your big brother_. Sam ducked her head down, hiding behind her bangs. She still hadn't explained her injury to him. She hadn't explained anything to him. She hadn't opened up about Roger's… accident, not once. Sam had no idea what to tell him. There didn't seem to be a way to avoid it this time, but it was still too soon, too fresh. Sam didn't know how she'd even be able to start without dissolving into painful whimpers and watery sobs. No, better to just leave it alone. She could Hunt just fine, so long as they didn't bring _this_ up.

"Sammy," Dean whispered desperately, "come on, kiddo." Sam flicked her eyes up to her brother's face and then back down to her hands, picking at a nonexistent piece of dirt.

"Dad's not here. He would have left us a sign or message of some sort, yeah? And there isn't a damn thing that _I've_ seen. For all we know, he was never in Lost Creek to _begin_ with." Sam kept her voice hushed, but it broke and wavered in places against her will. It sounded like she was on the verge of tears, but her eyes were dry; she had none left to shed that weren't out of anger. Oh, but she was plenty angry at her dad. The why they'd grown up… Sam had never had her childhood. Dean hadn't either, for that matter. For as long as she could remember, it had always been Dean's job to look out for her, to make sure she was safe, and that always came first for him. It had always fallen to her brother to be her guardian while their father was off for weeks at a time, which was too much to ask of anyone, let alone a child. By the time Dean had been seven, John had started leaving him alone with Sam in skeevy motel rooms for days on end. Where Dean had been patient and taught her how to hold herself in a fight at her own pace, her father had barked at her for being too slow, too emotional, for not detaching from the victims like she should, for not listening to orders. Fuck him. Fuck him and all of his fucking _orders_.

Dean drew his hands back and sat next to Sam on the trunk.

"No, Sammy. I don't think he's ever been to Lost Creek." Sam pursed her lips, staring at a the spot on the ground right between her feet.

"I need to find him, Dean. I _have_ to find him. I need to get myself answers and find the thing that…" Sam's voice died at that. She hadn't been able to say it in her mind hardly ever, let alone out loud. She just couldn't say it. Her brain stopped right before she did and went alarmingly but comfortably blank the few times she'd tried. "I've just got to find it, Dean." Sam looked over at her brother where he was watching her closely. He got up and moved to a rock directly in front of her and sat down so he could look her in the face.

"I know, Sam, and we will, I promise. We'll find Dad, I _promise_ you, but until then, he left us his journal for a reason. That's his single most valuable possession; everything he knows about every evil thing is in that book. I think… I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know, saving people, hunting things. The family business." Sam nodded, looking over to where Ben was falling asleep with his head on his sister's shoulder; Haley was gazing distractedly into the fire. Here was Sam's brother, once again putting her welfare above everything. He hadn't even stopped to check on the Collins siblings on his way over to his sister. She had come first, and he was trying to take care of her first. She was priority number one. Again.

"But you listen to me, Sammy. You've gotta prepare yourself. I mean, this search could take a while, and all that anger you have inside you… you can't keep it burning over the long haul, it's gonna _kill_ you. You gotta stop the ticking, Sam." Sam saw the logic in that, but the demon raged against it, spewing her anger out into her system, and all of a sudden, it was like she could literally feel the _SNAP_ of something going off in her head.

Rolling her eyes up to her brothers, Sam nearly snarled. This sounded pretty and all, but it was just fucking _rich_ coming from the king of bottle-that-shit-up-and-don't-you-ever-fucking-mention-it-to-me-again. How fucking unfair was it of him to try and worm his way under her skin with his shiny, caring, expressive eyes, and his driving determination to be the big brother and make it all better so that she'd spill her guts? Whenever Sam had tried to do that to him, he'd always snapped at her and they'd gotten into a fight. The fight never lasted long, (they never did) but it always drew them away from talking about Dean. Now that it came to Sam, though, she had to rip open her wounds and give him everything, blackened by fire and smoke? No, thank you very god damn much. Manipulative, hypocritical asshat.

"So what the fuck do you want me to do about this, Dean? You want me to cry for you, bear my heart and soul to you and weep with you under the pretty, pretty moonlight?" Sam grounded her words out from between her teeth. "You want to actually sit here and fucking _talk_ about this? That's hilarious, coming from the man who wrote the book on bottling his shit up. Like, seriously, you want to _talk_ to me about this? With emotions and everything? Maybe when we're done you can go pick me some wildflowers and we'll skip off into the sunset, holding hands. Is that it?" Dean's jaw clenched and his eyes hardened in anger. She knew she was being unfair, that her brother was just trying to make sure she got her shit in order and pulled herself back from the edge, but it felt so _good_ to just lash these words out at his skin to make him bleed.

"Yeah, thanks for all your concern, princess," Sam leaned forward until her face was a hair's breadth from her brother's, "but I don't _want_ to fucking 'talk'." Dean's muscles in his jaw worked, and she could see the physical effort it took him not to start yelling at his younger sister. Not only had she thrown the offer for comfort in his face, she'd told him he was being a girl about it, that it was making him seem feminine and weak. It was actually his insecurities about seeming weak that kept him from opening up or being a big brother that gave Sam his shoulder to cry on, and she'd knowingly used them against him to draw his attention away from getting her to open up. His eyes bore into hers, glowing with their classic I'm-15-seconds-away-from-kicking-your-ass look that he seemed to reserve just for Sam, and she glared stubbornly back at him. If he came to blows, that was it. She'd start punching, and she had no idea how she'd stop. Dean clenched his hands into fists, his eyes sparkling with anger and determination.

'_Yeah, that's right,'_ Sam sneered, _'doesn't feel too nice to know something's wrong and you can't do shit about it, does it?'_ At first it looked like Dean was going to throw back a retort that was just as cutting and bitter in retaliation, but he never go around to it. Before he had gotten the chance to say anything there was another cry from the woods. It sounded exactly like the one they'd heard earlier, and this voice pleaded and begged for help as well. Sam snapped her mouth shut and rushed over to the fire, the moment gone. There was immediate danger that needed to be dealt with, and her lifetime of training in the face of danger overrode any need for conversation, though it didn't completely override her resentment and ire. Dean was no different, and he was right beside her, cocking his gun, though a glance at his face told her that he was still really pissed off at her. The gun in his hand was useless, and he knew this, but it probably helped to just have it there; all Sam had been able to get was a flashlight she'd scavenged from one of the tents.

Haley and Ben had jumped to their feet at the sound, eyes wild and terrified. Roy squinted out into the woods, trying to pinpoint where the voice was coming from., but it was impossible to see in the darkness.

"It's trying to draw us out." Dean grouched, "Just stay cool. Stay put."

"Inside the magic circle?" Roy asked with a mocking tone. Dean glared over his shoulder at the disbelieving man. The last cry for help stopped mid-yell and morphed into a feral roar that made Sam's blood run cold. Ben and Haley whimpered, and Roy's face grew taught with tension. "Okay," he admitted nervously, "that's no grizzly."

Dean and Roy stood at the opposite ends of the protective circle, listening carefully. They could hear the low growls and snapping twigs beyond their vision of sight. Dean's grip on his gun tightened. Showtime.

* * *

><p><strong>What did y'all think of Dean's final confrontation with Sam? I thought that it was a little too easy in the actual episode, honestly. With all the anger Sam had been displaying previously throughout the episode, he seemed a little too passive and... not angry. So, I changed it to what I Thought was a more likely outcome. Not to mention that Samantha's a little less open with her emotions than Sam is in the actual show, and she's a little more hardcore than her male counterpart. At least in my opinion. SO, taking all of that into consideration, I rather like their... confrontation? argument?... whatever. Thing. Yeah. But what do <em>you<em> all think of it?**

**Lemme know with reviews! I want to be as accurate as possible to the characters in the show.**

**Peace.**


	6. Evil That Devours

**Hello, sweeties!**

**This chapter is relatively short, and is split up a lot more than the others, but that doesn't mean I spent less detail on it! Second to last chapter, y'all!**

**How am I doing?**

**Any episodes/moments/thoughts/whatever that you want me to write? I'd be more than happy! Just hit me up. I'm actually thinking of doing "Home" after this. Any thoughts?**

**Yours,**

**MD**

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_**

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><p>Words were such interesting things to Sam. Words could inspire nations to war, if framed the right way, and they could break the hardiest of soldiers if they promised the right threat. Words could enchant you, frighten you, comfort you, or anger you, depending on how they were used. But the most interesting part to Sam is when words had no power at all. Like now for instance. Haley was holding her frightened brother Ben in her arms, whispering how he'd be okay and that she promised he wouldn't get hurt, but it was obvious Ben wasn't convinced. Hell, Haley didn't look too convinced either, for that matter. What with the unearthly growls and snapping twigs that seemed to come from every direction, both of the siblings were quivering balls of frayed nerves and fear by the fire.<p>

Sam shone the flashlight in her hands out into the night, looking for a glimpse of anything. There was a loud roar off to her left, and she turned just in time to see some bushes sway. She noticed with a good dose of anxiety that that had been really close to the edge of the protective Anasazi symbols. Almost literally right on the edge. Sam hated Wendigos. Freaky bastards.

Dean and Roy walked slowly over to the spot, but the Wendigo was already gone, moved to a different spot. Sam jumped when the Wendigo growled low and harsh and the old Bambi hunter fired his gun. He missed. The Wendigo dashed around, and Roy thrust his shotgun up and popped off a shot right as the creature passed in front of him. The Wendigo let out a high, keening sound before Sam heard it dash away.

"I got it!" Roy exclaimed and leapt over the symbols, chasing after it.

"Roy, no!" Dean yelled after him, running up the very edge, cursing under his breath. Sam dashed up next to him, but Roy was already gone. Her brother whirled around and pointed sternly where Haley sat. "Stay here!" His voice left no room for argument, not that they looked like they would have challenged him, but still.

The siblings jumped over the edge and took off after Roy, racing to catch up to the hunter. Sam tried to shine her light ahead of them and hopefully spot the man, but after running around blindly for a couple minutes, they slowed and listened. Nothing. No growling or screaming or snapping twigs. No crickets or owls or any night life you would expect to find in the middle of a forest. Nothing. No Roy. No Wendigo. Just silence.

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><p>Sam sat, leaning against the trunk she'd been sitting on last night while she'd talked with Dean, gripping her dad's journal in her hands. Her legs were bent up, her elbows resting on her knees, and her feet were set apart, her hands dangling with the journal in the space between. She hadn't slept a wink last night. She'd been too high-strung on adrenaline, and when that had faded, her self-rebukes had kept her up. She had let Roy get away, and now he was dead. He'd shot the Wendigo, they'd all heard that cry before it ran away, but it had been all night and the hunter still hadn't come back to camp. The man was dead. Another death that weighed heavy on her conscience. Sam always felt personally responsible for the welfare of the innocent people that sometimes tagged along on Hunts. Yeah, Roy had pissed her off, but it had been her job to look after him. If she couldn't do her job then what the hell was she good for?<p>

Sam hit her head against the trunk behind her a couple times, letting out a frustrated groan. She'd been sitting here all night in this position. Her legs were stiff and her back ached. She needed to get up and move around. Sam put her left hand against the dirt and used the leverage to help her stand, stretching out her tired muscles. Her dark blue jeans had a few stains on them now, but they were nothing major. Her deep green long-sleeved V-neck was dirty too, and wrinkly, but again, nothing major. Her leather jacket was lying across the tree trunk, and Sam promptly slipped it over shoulders before turning and walking back towards Dean, Ben, and Haley.

"Hey." everyone looked over at her, and Haley got to her feet , wiping the dirt off her knees and looking just as bad as Sam probably did. She hadn't been the only night owl, it seemed. "So, we've got a half a chance in the daylight. And I, for one, wanna waste this evil son of a bitch." Dean smirked at her and shrugged his consent.

"Well hell, you know _I'm_ in." Sam opened up the journal and flipped once more to the page on Wendigos. It was time to educate Haley and Ben. She walked over to them and slanted the journal so that they could peruse the page while she informed them just exactly what it was they were up against.

"'Wendigo' is a Cree Indian word, it means, 'evil that devours.'" Sam began.

"They're hundreds of years old, and each one was once a man. Sometimes an Indian, or a frontiersman, or a miner, or a hunter." Dean helped the explanation from where he was picking up a small canister of propane for a camping lantern. By the satisfied look on his face, it still had some juice in it. Dean walked past Ben and his sister to pick up an empty beer bottle. Haley looked disgusted with this new piece of information.

"How's a _human_ turn into one of those things?" This time, he bent down and picked up a white shirt, looking at Haley.

"Well, it's always the same. During some harsh winter, a guy finds himself starving, cut off from supplies or help. He becomes a cannibal to survive, eating members of his tribe or camp." Haley shuddered, looking a little sick. Ben just looked over at Sam.

"Like the Donnor Party," he mumbled. Sam nodded gravely.

"Cultures all over the world believe that eating human flesh gives a person certain abilities," Sam continued, "speed, strength, immortality…" Her voice trailed off as she let their two companions mull this over in their brains for a minute or so.

"If you eat enough of it," Dean said, "over the years you become this less-than-human thing, and you're always hungry."

"So if that's true," Haley said, sounding solemn and resigned, "how can Tommy still be alive?" Dean looked back at his sister who nodded. They were telling them everything else, anyway. They deserved to know the truth.

"You're not gonna like it," Dean muttered. That iron determination sparked to life in Haley's eyes. This girl treasured her family just as much as Sam did with hers. Haley wasn't actually all that annoying to her anymore, truth be told. That had seemed to evaporate once they'd lost Roy.

"Tell me," Haley demanded, not missing a beat. Dean sighed.

"More than anything, a Wendigo knows how to survive long winters without food. It hibernates for years at a time, and when it's awake, it keeps its victims alive. It, uh… it stores them, so it can feed whenever it wants." Haley and Ben looked at one another sadly over this thought. "If your brother's alive, it's keeping him somewhere dark, hidden, and safe. And we gotta track it back there." Haley looked quite uncomfortable with that idea. She wasn't the only one. Crawling into a dark, musty, old mine to chase down a man-eating-super-charged killer wasn't exactly Sam's idea of charming. But it had to be done, and her and Dean were the only ones that could do it.

"And then how do we stop it?" Haley asked, sounding a little exasperated.

"Well, guns are useless. So are knives. Basically…" Dean held up the gas, cloth, and empty bottle in his hands, "we gotta torch the sucker."

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><p>Ben and Haley had, of course, refused to stay behind. Whether staying inside the circle was safe or not, they weren't comfortable being left on their own, and they wanted to help look for their brother. So, the team of four had set out as soon as the makeshift Molotov cocktails were done, with Dean in front and Sam taking up the rear again. They'd head in the direction Roy had run off last night, figuring it was as good a place to start as any. Dean held one bottle while Sam had the other.<p>

A few minutes of walking, and then they noticed the claw marks. Four, long, distinct, bloody claw marks scratched into the trunk of a tree, clear as day. A close inspection of the trees around them showed that there were more marks on a nearby tree, but fifteen feet higher, and there were even more on a tree near that one. The four of them followed the trail of wounded trees with renewed vigor, but it wasn't long before they noticed something was wrong. Sam didn't like the claw marks in the trees. They were so precise and clear. If the Wendigo had been running when it'd made these, and they were accidental, shouldn't they be a lot more jagged and less… perfect? It just didn't seem right.

When Sam looked at the trees around them, she stopped in horror. Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. This was bad, this was very, _very_ bad.

"Dean!" Sam shrieked, her voice having gone up several octaves. The other three jumped to a stop and whirled around. Dean was scanning the area, looking for any sign of danger. When he didn't see any, he looked at Sam and his face grew worried when he saw the dread on hers. He jogged over to her.

"What is it?" Sam just raised her right hand and pointed to the trunks around them. Dean, Haley, and Ben all looked up. Haley gasped. Dean cursed. There were bloody claw marks on nearly every tree surrounding them. They hadn't been tracking the bitch… they'd been lead here. Fucker was smart. It drew them to a specific spot where it could hide and wait for them to show up, catching them unawares. Fuck, that meant it was probably watching them right now.

"You know," Sam muttered, "I was thinking, those claw marks, _so_ clear and distinct… they were almost too easy to follow." Dean cursed again and kicked out at a stick near his feet in frustration.

Out of nowhere, they heard the Wendigo growl. Fucking fuck fucker fuck. FUCK. Sam whirled around, shoving her right hand into her jacket and pulling out a yellow lighter, holding it at the ready to light the makeshift Molotov in her hand. The sound came again from behind Sam. Everyone jumped. Sam could just see something tall running into the trees before it disappeared out of sight. Shit. Fuck. They were sitting ducks like this, weapons or no weapons.

Sam's attention was momentarily diverted to Haley when she screamed, leaping out of the way just in time to avoid the falling corpse of a certain hunter/guide. Sam grimaced, and helped a petrified Haley to her feet. Dean knelt down and picked up the head.

"Dammit, the neck's broken." He snapped his head up and looked frantically for any sign of the Wendigo. They couldn't see it, oh, but they heard it. It was getting closer. Dean shot to his feet and whirled around. "Go! Run, run! Run! Go! Now!"

They bolted, their feet pounding into the ground as hard as they could, and Sam flung up a prayer that her foot didn't catch on a tree root or something. Dean and Haley got a little bit ahead, and even though Sam could easily catch up to them, she hung back with Ben, keeping with him to watch out for the boy. This ended up being a good thing because he tripped over something and fell flat on his face in the dirt. Sam skidded to a halt and ran back to him, heaving Ben to his feet.

"It's okay, I got you." Ben nodded his thanks. He paled when Haley let out another scream, this one shrill and terrified. Sam and Ben stood there staring at each other in dread, and then they took off running again, this time for a whole new reason. They knew they'd gotten to the spot where Haley had shrieked in terror when Sam bent down and picked up a piece of a broken beer bottle, with a white cloth running through the middle.

"Haley!" Ben shouted, but it was useless, there was no answer. Sam dropped the broken glass, panting and in total panic mode. Dean and Haley were missing. The monster had them. The monster had her fucking brother. Sam spun around, looking desperately for any other sign of her brother. Trees, plants, and dirt a plenty. But her brother and Haley Collins? Nowhere to be found. Sam's panic spun out of control. No, she couldn't lose her brother. He couldn't be gone. He'd made a promise to her. He'd promised her he keep her safe. He'd promised her they'd find their dad. He'd… Dean had _promised_ her, and he had never one broken a promise he'd made to Sam. So, she couldn't lose him too, see? He never broke his promises. He had to be fine. He still had promises. He couldn't die. No… _nonononono_. He couldn't…

"DEAN!" Sam wailed at the top of her lungs. Silence. She couldn't lose Dean. Not Dean. She'd never come back from that. She couldn't lose him. She just couldn't.

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><p>Sam and Ben walked quietly through the woods. They hadn't really known where to head, so they'd just gone straight. For a small distance they walked in silence, but then Ben started asking questions about the Wendigo, and that's just what he was doing when they passed through a meadow and headed back into the trees.<p>

"If it keeps its victims alive, why would it kill Roy?" Sam had her hands in her pockets, having lost her Molotov cocktail somewhere between Ben falling and finding out Dean had gotten taken. She hadn't even noticed it was gone until Ben had said something. She'd then let loose a string of curses that her brother would have congratulated her on for her creativity and swiftly pulled out the hunter's knife she always kept on her person and stabbed the shit out of the closest tree until she felt better; they had no way to kill the Wendigo now, but did that stop the two companions from going after it in hopes of finding their siblings? Of course not.

"Honestly? I think because Roy shot at it. He pissed it off." Sam routinely scanned the trees, but when she looked back to Ben, he was ahead of her and crouched over something.

"They went this way!" He looked back at Sam, excited, his question totally forgotten. She walked up to him and bent over his shoulder. He was smiling. Smiling, and holding the most beautiful thing she had ever seen: a bright blue Peanut M&M. Sam thanked anything and everything she could think of as she laughed out loud. She could jump up and down, she was so happy.

"It's better than bread crumbs." And it was. The bright colors of the chocolate-covered-peanut-candies stood out against the brown dirt like beacons in the night. The trail was ridiculously easy to follow, and it led them deeper and deeper into the forest. It was a good two hours before the got to the end at an abandoned mine shaft.

Sam crouched low, moving cautiously towards the boarded up opening, Ben close behind her. She glanced at him and put a finger to her lips. He nodded. She pointed to a hole from missing boards that were supposed to cover the front entrance and crept up to it. She slipped through easily enough, and Ben followed right after her, and they just stood there, holding their breaths and listening for the slightest noise. Confident they were alone, Sam reached for Ben's hand and squeezed it gently once she had it in her grasp, and slowly started walking forward. She was the only hope for Dean and Haley to get out alive. Tommy too, if he hadn't been eaten yet. She needed to stay calm and collected. She needed to ignore everything besides the Hunt. Sam called upon her Hunter training and slipped into business mode, all seriousness. She still had this sense of overwhelming panic that something had happened and all she would find was a blonde- haired, green-eyed, freckled corpse that looked like her brother, but no Dean, but she couldn't allow that kind of distraction right now. She had to stamp it down until all she felt was the cold, analytical Hunter her father had trained her to be. She had a job to do, and damn if she wouldn't do it right.

Man... Sam fucking _hated_ Wendigos.

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><p><strong>Not entirely satisfied with this ending, but seeing as I'm battling the onset of a migraine (Samantha's rubbing off on me, I swear) I can't find it in myself to change it. So ya know what? You all can just deal. <strong>

**Punks.**

**...**

**But you should still leave me awesome reviews.**

**...Please?**

**Peace**


	7. Search and Rescue

**Hello, my beauties!**

**This is the last chapter. Significantly longer than the last "episode," yeah? I had just as much fun writing this one as I did for Relapse, and I want to thank everyone who read this and added this to their alert list. Into the Nothing, you are a darling, and I treasure you. 'Nuff said.**

**Please, please, PLEASE tell me what you think! I'm pretty sure I'm going to be doing "Home" next, and I have a few ideas for a few original SamNDean fics (featuring my darling Samantha, of course. Dunno what it is, but I just LOVE the idea of him having a sister!) that I'll try to post along the way.**

**Thanks so much, again!**

**Enjoy!**

**Yours,**

**MD**

**_DISCLAIMER: I do not own any part of Supernatural. All credit for the show goes to Eric Kripke and the beautiful writers that thought this up. Bits from the actual episode were taken for accuracy purposes only. Enjoy!_**

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><p>Not knowing where the Wendigo was didn't really scare Sam much, though it was obviously terrifying poor Ben. Sure, it made her cautious, and rightfully so, but she didn't feel that seed of panic growing in the pit of her stomach. Not for a Wendigo, anyway, though Sam was having a hard time keeping control on the fear that her brother was somewhere within these musty mines, half-eaten and dead. Ben clung to her arm so hard it almost hurt, but Sam carefully kept her injured hand away from his, and he flinched at the slightest sound. She tried to remember how scared she'd been on her first Hunt and compare how scared the boy next to her was. It had been a ghoul, and Sam had had to prove she had the stuff it took to track it, decapitate it, and get rid of the body. She'd been fourteen, and terrified the whole time that she was going to die. Of course, it was a complete accident that she went Hunting so young; not even her brother started Hunting at that age. Her father and her brother has frightened the ghoul, so it had come after Sam as revenge, or maybe it had wanted to keep her as leverage. Whatever the reason, it's head came off nonetheless. She had the scars to prove it. Ben looked about how she'd felt at the time.<p>

Sam pulled out the flashlight with her free arm and turned it on. The mine was moldy and damp, and they could hear water dripping down the walls. There was a track of M&Ms on the ground they were following, but other than that, there wasn't much to see. They were just creeping up on a part where a perpendicular corridor connected with the hallway they were walking through, and Sam heard the Wendigo growl from it. She turned off her flashlight, and yanked hard on Ben, pulling him past the opening and throwing him against the wall next to her. She clamped her left hand over his mouth, reminding him to stay completely silent and looked off to the left. She could see the Wendigo's outline in the light coming in from outside. It was almost eight feet tall, with long, gangly arms legs. Its head was bald, and the ears were pointed. Its rattling breaths exhaled on soft, menacing growls. Sam shuddered. She fucking _hated_ Wendigos.

Once the creature had disappeared into the light, Sam dropped her hand from Ben's mouth. He was still holding on to her arm, and he was shaking now. Sam gently pushed away from the wall as the two of them turned the corner and down the hallway the monster had been in moments before and turned her flashlight back on.

"Ready?" Ben nodded deftly and they walked forward. The mud under their feet changed out for creaky wooden floors, and the poor boy nearly jumped out of his skin whenever a floor board would groan in protest. Sam just kept her eyes forward, ears listening intently to the world around her. One of them had to be calm; she had to be calm for Ben, and Dean, and Haley, wherever they might be. Sam had to be strong. She had to calm. She had to be a Hunter. She had to shove all her fear and anxiety away. Box. Prison. Calm. Focus.

Sam's brow furrowed when her feet stepped down and the groan was a lot louder and a lot longer than any creaks they'd made before. She glanced down at her feet and then at Ben nervously. She could already feel the wood bending under her weight, and she was about to push Ben forward and leap after him, but the wood finally snapped and broke. The pair fell through the hole down into another hallway below them. Sam landed hard on her back, the breath rushing out from her lungs, and she groaned when Ben's foot connected with her gut. She felt something jabbing into her back hard, and for a few moments, she just lay there, dazed. She rolled away, shoving the boy's foot off her and looked down at what had been protruding into her spine. It was a bone… a human bone. A leg bone from the looks of it. Ben looked up from the dirt straight into the smiling faces of three broken skulls and gasped, throwing himself away from the bones as hard as he could. Sam grabbed his shoulders, steadying him from falling, and kept her tone calm and soothing so that he wouldn't scream. It wouldn't do for him to call the monster back into the mines.

"Hey, it's okay. It's okay." Ben was trembling, and he looked on the verge of tears, but his cheeks were dry, so his strength of will hadn't failed him yet. Sam mused that this family was a lot heartier than they looked. Sam patted his shoulder lightly and began her inspection of their surroundings. She looked up at the hole they'd fallen through, and groaned internally. Couldn't go out that way, then. She looked down and off to her left, but the hallway just extended into darkness and there wasn't much to see there. So, she turned her head the other direction and stiffened. She let go of Ben and scrambled to her feet, nearly falling over herself in an attempt to get up fast enough.

"Dean!" She ran over to where Dean and Haley were hanging by their wrists from the ceiling. Dean's feet were just a couple inches off the ground, but Haley's were a good seven inches at least. And that was all the attention Sam cared to spare for the girl hanging next to her brother. Sam grabbed the collar of Dean's muddy jacket and shook lightly. His head lolled back and forth a little, but otherwise there was no response. Sam shook harder.

"Dean!" Ben had rushed forward to his sister and was trying to rouse her much in the same manner. Dean moaned and his eyes fluttered open. Sam breathed a sigh of relief. "Hey, you okay?" Dean rolled his eyes down at his sister, but it took a moment before the glazed look went away, and she could see recognition and relief within. He grunted.

"Yeah," he growled. Sam looked him over, not entirely believing that sentiment. He had a gash on his forehead, he was covered in mud, and God only knew what else, and there were a few spots of blood on his shirt and jeans. For being okay, he didn't look all that convincing.

"You sure?" Dean just nodded. Sam let it go and pulled a knife out from a hidden holster in her boot. She got on a rock next to Dean and stood on her tip toes, working at the rope with her knife. When she finally cut through it, her brother fell the couple inches, his legs crumpling under the sudden weight. Sam hurriedly jumped off the rock and handed the knife to Ben so he could get his sister free, and bent down to check on her brother. She got rid of the piece of rope keeping his hands tied and grabbed his arm, helping him over to the wall where he leaned back, wincing and groaning in pain. Ben dragged his bleary sister over next to Dean.

Sam put her hand to Dean's face and softly rubbed the skin around an small cut on his forehead. Sam looked down at his chest. She couldn't meet his eyes. She'd failed him twice now. First she'd let Roy get captured and killed by this evil son of a bitch, and then she'd let her Dean get captured and stored away as food for the damn thing. If she wasn't so stubborn, she'd probably be crying already.

"I… I thought you might've…" Sam couldn't finish that sentence. Couldn't even finish that thought. She probably would have died if he'd already been eaten, point blank. She would have snapped without the help of her brother and just died. Losing Roger had been a kind of pain Sam had never experienced before and couldn't handle just yet, but losing Dean? Her best friend, her older brother, and by all rights the only parent she'd ever known? Too much to ask of any person, least of all Sam.

"Well I didn't so stop crying and focus. Where is it?" Sam looked up at her brother's exasperated face. She waited for a moment but nodded. She filed her thoughts away to examine and dissect later. Now was not the time to be a crybaby.

"It's gone for now." Next to Sam and Dean, Haley worked her way out of her bonds and inhaled sharply. Sam looked over at her, but Haley was already standing up shakily. Ben followed his sister over, just as dazed, to a man Sam hadn't even noticed was in the room with them, but in the dim light, she recognized it as their brother Tommy. His head was completely slack against his chest, and he was covered in blood and dirt; from this distance Sam couldn't tell if he was alive or not. She stood and walked over next to Haley, who was crying and putting her hand on his cheek. Apparently young Miss Collins didn't think her brother had made it.

Tommy gasped and snapped his head up, making his sister jump and shriek in surprise. But the shock was short-lived and easily replaced by the first real genuine happiness Sam had seen in either Ben or Haley since they'd first met. Haley turned to her brother Ben and told him to cut Tommy down since he still had Sam's knife. Once he did so, Ben handed it back to her, and Sam watched over them and their little happy reunion, smiling softly as she tucked her weapon back into her boot. It was moments like these that made Hunting truly worth it. All the pain, loss, and the burden of what was out there were worth saving lives like this. It was the reason Sam had lasted as long as she had in the first place before leaving for Stanford.

"Check it out." Sam turned to her brother Dean at his ecstatic voice. He was on his feet now and their duffel bag of supplies was at his feet. He'd pulled two very specific guns out and was twirling them in their hands.

"Flare guns," mused Sam, mentally appreciating her brother's foresight in packing everything he had, "those'll work." Her and Dean grinned at one another for a moment before Sam turned to the Collins family. "C'mon, help your brother walk, we need to get out of here." Haley nodded and her and Ben both took an arm and got their older brother to his feet. The four walked over to Dean, and Sam took the flare gun he handed her, feeling a little safer with the cold metal in her hands.

They had to move slow because Tommy's leg had a deep gash on it that looked infected, but they were making progress. Sam was almost starting to let herself believe they would all make it out safely, but, of course, that just had to be when the Wendigo got back. Its angry growl echoed through the rocky hallways, and Sam brought her gun up, tense. Her brother looked around slowly.

"Looks like someone's home for supper," he said.

"We'll never outrun it!" Haley despaired. Dean looked back at her, frowning. Sam could almost see the gears in his head turning, and she knew her face looked the same. They couldn't afford to have these civilian innocents around if the Wendigo decided to pop up, they really _would_ get them all killed if that happened, but they couldn't just wander out on their own. It would be like handing them right over to this supernatural freak. So, either Sam or Dean had to stay with the trio of siblings all the way out while the other went in search of the Wendigo. The Winchesters couldn't, in good conscience, _not_ go after the damn thing. It was evil, therefore it died. End of story. That was how their dad had raised them. It had been drilled into Sam's head since she could speak. She also knew that Dean would be the one to go look for the monster; he would absolutely refuse to let Sam go look for it, protective brother that he was. And, now that he had a gun that would _work_ she wasn't worried about him dying. Nah, the Wendigo was the thing in danger now, not her brother. So, that left Sam as the guardian for Haley, Ben, and Tommy, and gave her the task of escorting them out of the mine and to safety.

Dean looked over at his sister. The plan had been made, and they hadn't even needed to say anything. "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"

"Yeah, 'course." Her brother nodded and turned to Haley.

"All right, listen to me. Stay with Sam, she's gonna get you out of here." Haley raised her eyebrows at him.

"What're _you_ gonna do?" Dean just winked at her before walking off to the corridor in front of them.

"It's chow time, you freaky bastard!" Dean yelled, standing and looking down a corner, "Yeah, that's right, bring it on, baby! I taste _good_!" He waved them on before taking off down the tunnel, his shouts and taunts becoming softer and more indistinct as he drifted away from the group. Sam waited a good twenty seconds before she stealthily moved over to inspect the corridor off to their side. Peering around the corner, she heard and saw nothing.

"Okay, come on. This way." Haley and Ben helped their brother as they passed Sam and hobbled down the dark passage. Sam kept her eyes and ears peeled, her grip on her gun never wavering, despite the throb that was growing once more in her knuckles. Dean was going to ream her ass once this case was taken care of.

It wasn't until Sam could see light again that she started to relax. She led her group around another corner (it had felt like their trip back had been nothing but dead-ends and corners up to this point) and let out a sigh of relief. She couldn't remember, but it _looked_ like the tunnel she'd first come through with Ben.

A rock moved behind her, and she heard a low hiss. Sam whirled around. Shit, she hadn't heard it coming up behind her.

"Haley, get them out of here!" Haley shook her head in dismay.

"Sam, no." Sam growled, they didn't have the fucking _time_ for her to be stubborn.

"Go." Haley didn't budge. Sam reached out and pushed her lightly on her shoulder. "_Go!_" Haley shook her head, but she turned around and started walking away as quick as the three of them could manage. Sam could hear the growling, could almost taste the hate in the air. It rolled off the Wendigo in waves. It was so difficult to tell which direction the snarling was coming from, it kept bouncing off the walls before finally reaching the youngest Winchester, and it made her feel disoriented. Sam dashed over to a rock wall and stood flush against it, hiding around the left corner from the corridor where the rock had moved.

"Come on," she whispered, waiting for the creature to round the corner. Silence. The feral growls had stopped. Sam tensed, straining her ears. She heard a slight rustle… off to her left. The opposite of where she'd thought the monster would be. Paling, and with growing dread, she slowly turned her head and came face-to-face with the ugly bastard.

Its skin was ashen gray, pulled taught against its skeleton, bones seeming to push outward, crying for release. Bloody lips hung loosely around chipped, yellow, jagged teeth, rotted away by the numerous human bodies consumed. She couldn't see its eyes, they were set too deep in the Wendigo's face, so there was only blackness where the eyes should be. A few wispy, wires of hair hung limply from its skull, and the ears came to slight points at the tips. It towered over Sam, but it hunched its shoulders up, drawing in on itself. Muscle had withered away until the creature's arms and chest were nothing but skin and bone. She could literally count every rib.

The Wendigo opened its mouth wide and screeched, the sound loud and deafening. Sam threw herself away from the wall and away from the creature, landing off to the side on her back. Without missing a beat, she pulled her gun up, aimed, and fired, but it didn't matter, the monster was still faster and ran away, leaving Sam's flare to hit the rock wall behind it.

She scrambled to her feet, discarding the now useless gun, and ran as fast as she could, struggling to catch up with Haley and her brothers. She heard the Wendigo following behind her, but it wasn't running. No, it was walking just fast enough to keep up with her. It was playing with her. Sam pushed herself harder when she saw Haley's blue jacket.

"Haley!" Sam bellowed, her voice echoing even louder in the hallway. "Faster! It's coming!" Haley and Ben sped up, half-helping half-dragging their older brother between them. Sam ran steadily behind them, looking quickly behind her. The Wendigo was still there, and it was gaining on them now. Game over.

Sam despaired when she realized that this wasn't the same hallway she'd entered the mines through. The light had merely been coming through a big hole in the roof, through which it was already dark outside. They were down to guessing where to turn, but when they turned down a dead-end, Sam roared out a curse. Haley started crying, leaning against the wall, and Ben just stood there, shocked and eerily still. Tommy looked dazed, and on the verge of unconsciousness. The Wendigo stepped around the corner, growling low in its throat. Sam stepped in front of the Collinses and spread her arms wide, shielding them from the slowly advancing creature.

"Stay behind me!" The Wendigo threw its head back and let out a victory cry that hurt Sam's ears, but she refused to move. If she was going to go out, she was going to go out with pride. And hey, at least her death could atone for her not watching out for Roger. Man... if she'd never gone on that Hunt with her brother, she wouldn't be here right now. She wouldn't be sweating, shivering, and counting the seconds until she was eaten alive. She wouldn't be worried about how much her brother was going to beat himself up over her death, and she wouldn't be worried about their father. She'd be at home, at Stanford, studying for tests she didn't want to take, and arguing with Roger about how Shaggy was better than Fred on Scooby-Doo. If she'd just never have gone with Dean on that Hunt to Jericho, Roger wouldn't have died.

"Hey!" Sam nearly cried when she saw her brother at the end of the tunnel, though she couldn't honestly say whether it was with relief or not. The monster whirled around, and Dean fired his gun, hitting the Wendigo straight in the chest. It wailed and cried out as the light from the flare seemed to glow from the inside of the creature. Sam could see its bones through the skin which rapidly caught fire, and the stench of its burning flesh made her nauseous, but she'd seen and smelled worse, so she held her own.

Soon enough, the creature fell to its knees, its howls of pain dying away as the burning body crumpled in on itself in a heaping mess on the ground. Everyone just stared at the fire for what felt like an eternity, saying nothing.

Dean looked up at the group huddled behind his sister and waggled his eyebrows, his regular cocky, smug expression characteristically in place. "Not bad, huh?" Haley just shook her head in disbelief, laughing at him. Ben started crying then, and Tommy just lolled his head back and sighed in relief. Dean looked over at Sam and his smile widened. She couldn't help the slightly empty feeling she had in the pit of her stomach. All was over and done with, she was glad for that, and of course she was relieved that Haley and her brothers would live to see another day because of her and Dean but... if she was totally honest... for a moment there, she'd almost wished her brother hadn't shot the thing. And that scared her. Scared her more than anything.

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><p>Sam stood behind Ben as he sold the grizzly bear story to the rangers. Boy lied like a natural, but still, she was there to cover up any holes the boy made in his state of nervousness, just in case. When the rangers were done with the questions, they two walked over to where Haley was smiling at Dean, who was leaning against the hood of his car and smirking lasciviously. They both had a few bandages on their face and skin. Sam rolled her eyes. God, kill her now.<p>

"Let's go," Haley said to her brother. They were going to ride in the ambulance with their brother Tommy. Ben nodded mutely. He turned to Sam and smiled shyly. She didn't hesitate before wrapping her arms around his neck, giving him a warm hug.

"You did good, Ben," she whispered in his ear. He tensed a little bit, but said nothing. She let go of him and pat his head; he had a bigger smile now. Haley leaned forward and pecked Dean on the cheek.

"I hope you find your father." Dean pursed his lips and nodded at her. She threw her arms around her younger brother's shoulders and smiled her thanks at Sam, who nodded in return. Sam walked over and leaned against the car, next to her brother and they watched as a paramedic closed the ambulance door.

"Man," Dean muttered, "I _hate_ camping." Sam giggled at her brother.

"Me too." Dean shifted his gaze over to his sister, staring at her from the corners of his eyes.

"Sammy, you know we're going to find Dad, right?" She sighed and looked at her damaged hand. That had also gotten patched up when the paramedics showed up. The lady had unwrapped the completely ruined, blood-soaked gauze and gasped in horror. Three of her knuckles looked black, the bruise on the skin between her knuckle bones and up her last three fingers a little bit. The cuts on her hand that had been small had widened a little bit from the constant clenching of her fist, and they were a bright red, angry color. The lady and poured some antiseptic on it, much to Sam's displeasure, and given her arm the proper medical attention. Now that all was over and done with, her hand hurt a lot less, but she'd been given strict orders not to strain or use it for two weeks, and no tightening her hand into a ball until the cuts were healed. Her hand would be fine, but Sam couldn't act like this again. She couldn't get that angry anymore, her brother had been right; it was going to kill her if she let that fire burn. She needed to find some way to let it slowly dissipate in healthy ways.

"Yeah," she whispered hoarsely, "I know." Sam looked up at all the commotion they'd caused. Cop cars, rangers, a whole mess of people were running around spreading the news about the 'grizzly' attack. Her brother followed her gaze and they were silent for a while longer. Sam smiled softly and turned to her brother, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "But until then?" She held out her hand, "I'm driving."

Dean jingled the keys in his hands for a long moment, thoughtful. Sam looked at her brother expectantly, but smiled when he tossed them towards her. She plucked them out of the air and walked briskly over to the driver's side. Her brother looked at her over the top of the car and tried to hide a smile, but she saw it in his eyes. He had such gentle, open eyes. She climbed in and turned the keys in the ignition. The car came to life, and Sam smiled wickedly. She revved the engine, just for good measure, and a good many people that had been called in when they'd returned turned and stared at the Impala appreciatively. Dean just chuckled and shook his head as Sam put the car into drive and slowly pulled away.

For now, the demon was quiet, and she didn't have to deal with the raging pressure going on in her head. She was sore, and she was tired as hell, but the fatigue meant a successful job. The car played Rush's 'Fly By Night' softly, and while Sam made her way back to the highway, for this short little while, the world didn't need her. It was just her, and her brother, traveling on the road again. Something warmed and melted a little bit inside her head, and she felt a tingling in her hands that wasn't all that unpleasant.

For this little bit, she didn't need to be a hero. For this little while, she was free.

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><p><strong>Reviews! Reviews are love!<strong>

**Until next time, y'all!**

**Peace.**


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